Spiderling
by DarkSmokePuncher
Summary: After 4 years of being labeled as quirkless, Izuku wakes up one morning with an amazing quirk. That spider from the previous day probably had nothing to do with it. After all, getting a quirk from being bitten by some creature is so much less likely than spontaneously getting one at all, that's completely unrelated to either of his parents' quirks. Hence, life simply moved on.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** After 4 years of being labeled as quirkless, Izuku wakes up one morning with an amazing quirk. That spider from the previous day probably had nothing to do with it. After all, getting a quirk from being bitten by some creature is so much less likely than spontaneously getting one at all, that's completely unrelated to either of his parents' quirks. Hence, life simply moved on.

 **This isn't the Author's Note you're looking for.** _*waves hand*_ **It's actually at the bottom.**

 **I don't own My Hero Academia, Spider-man or anything from Marvel. Just hoping to make some readers laugh, cry, and have some fun.**

 **!~¡**

 **Spiderling**

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 **Chapter 1**

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Late! He was going to be so late! And on the first day of high school!

Izuku couldn't help himself! It wasn't his fault that little old lady needed help crossing the street! Or that the mover lost his grip and almost got crushed by the sofa! Or that the little girl needed help with her kitten stuck on that tree!

Honestly, he would be face palming right now, if his hands weren't occupied with web swinging. While it was forbidden to use quirks in public without a license, his web-shooters weren't technically part of his quirk. Maybe he could save train money if he came to school like this every day. Speaking of..

He landed on the entrance of the U.A. academy and quickly rushed through, before jumping and shooting a web up one of the walls. He was cutting it too close, no time for stairs. Hopefully, no one would notice him going through the window.

West tower, second floor, fourth room..

Crap, that was the bell..

There, an open window!

Izuku flew through said window, did a midair side flip, and landed on the only empty chair in the room.. before proceeding to crash sideways from the momentum.

"Damn.. Too much speed," he muttered while rubbing the side of his head and getting up. "I should probably use my webs to slow down next time.."

"Next time?" a man with messy unkempt hair, wrapped in a sleeping bag said and Izuku froze. He looked around and saw 20 pair of eyes staring at him, one of which belonged to an incredibly unamused most-likely teacher. He also vaguely realized there were a lot of hanging jaws to accompany some of the eyes.

"I'm sorry I'm late!" Izuku yelled and bowed. "There was an old lady, and a sofa, and a little kitten and I thought I had enough time," he rambled before he was cut off.

"Technically you were right on time, since you entered slightly before me. However, we have such an inclusive door for a reason, so please make an attempt to use it next time. Now take your seat."

There were snickers from around the classroom and Izuku felt his cheeks turn scarlet. Great, what a wonderful first impression. He mumbled another sorry and sat down.

"Well, at least he managed to get you guys to quiet down in less than 3 seconds," the teacher said coming out of the sleeping bag. Izuku noted he was wearing some dark clothing and a white scarf. "I'm your homeroom teacher, Shouta Aizawa. Pleasure meeting you."

The teacher proceeded to take out a gym uniform from his sleeping bag, "Now wear this immediately and go to the P.E. grounds."

Everyone did as they were told. While they were walking, Izuku took the time to properly look around the academy. He hadn't realized how big it actually was while scaling it, a side effect from too much web swinging. You never did appreciate how massive buildings probably were inside while shooting around them from above.

"Hey!" he heard a female voice behind him, "I'm glad to see you here! I thought Present Mic lied to me when he said you made it!"

"Ooh, the nice girl!" his mouth blurted before his brain could put out a cease and desist. Damn it, one of these days he really needed to check if chattering too much wasn't an actual spider trait. At least he didn't blurt out she looked nice in the gym uniform.

Izuku heard snickers and noticed the nice-girl's eyes go wide and her cheeks inflame.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?"

A blond boy with what looked like black lightning in his hair laughed and put an arm over Izuku's shoulder, "You sure did, my man."

"I'm s-sorry!" Izuku stammered out, his eyes darting all over the place, yet still not quite straying for too long from the nice-girl's blushing face. "I didn't mean to! No! I mean I meant what I said, what I meant is I didn't mean to say what I said the way I said it.. Hello?"

"Smooth," a horned pink-skinned girl said from behind before bursting in laughter along with most of the other students.

Aizawa rolled his eyes. Teenagers. "I'm glad you all seem to be having fun. Here I was worried that the pressure and enormity of being in the hero program of U.A. would make everyone tense and nervous," the teacher said reminding everyone of the pressure and enormity of being in the hero program of U.A. and instantly making them tense and nervous. In the time Izuku had let his mouth run without input from his brain, they had reached one of the P.E. training grounds.

"It's time for the quirk apprehension test," he announced. Ignoring the exclamations of surprise, he continued. "We can deal with the frivolities later. Right now I want to see what each and every one of you is made of and whether you deserve to be here."

"Softball pitch. Standing long jumps. 50 meter dash. Endurance running. Grip strength test. Sustained sideways jumps. Upper body exercises. Seated toe-crunch." Aizawa listed off. "All activities from middle school. Except you were barred from using your quirks." His eyes moved over each student. "In U.A., in order to teach you, first we as your teachers and you yourselves need to know your limits." Aizawa pointed at Izuku. "Midorya, how far could you pitch a softball in middle school?"

Izuku startled at being put on the spot, "Um.. I wasn't allowed to throw." He stammered.

Aizawa tossed a softball at him and Izuku caught it deftly. "Good. Try throwing it now, using your quirk. Don't exit the circle and don't hold back."

Izuku gulped and stepped into the circle.

"Midoriya? He's Izuku Midorya, the one that got first place on the exam?" he heard whispers from his classmates.

"I heard he took down a 0 pointer," someone else said.

Izuku did his best to tune them out. He took a large breath and exhaled slowly, concentrating as much as he could. The teacher said not to hold back so letting loose would be fine. He pulled his arm back and threw.

It was a while before there was a ding from the device Aizawa was holding. "808 meters," he said calmly, showing it to everyone.

 **!~¡**

 _Izuku Midoriya. **Quirk:** Spider._

 _A mutation quirk that grants Izuku various abilities **:** proportional strength of a spider, along with super speed, agility, reflexes, and balance **;** increased senses and the addition of a 6th "spider" sense that notifies him of dangers, although without specifying what the danger is **;** wall-crawling – being able to stick with his arms and feet to surfaces **;** instinctual understanding of the chemical composition, physical properties, and mathematical utilisation of webs, which has allowed him to create a special substance he can shoot from wrist-mounted dispensers **;** his mouth also seems to have a mind of its own and tends to run away from him despite protests from his brain **.**_

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The announcement was followed by various exclamations of excitement. The teacher made sure to curb it immediately. "Oh and one more thing. The student who ranks last in total points will be judged hopeless and instantly expelled."

Izuku swallowed thickly and steeled his resolve. He would not fail here. Behind him, while some of the students of 1-A were discussing his throw or loudly and uselessly objecting to what the teacher said, a pair of eyes narrowed dangerously at the back of the green haired teen.

Katsuki ignored the throbbing in his right wrist that had been present since he first saw Deku's worthless face. He was glad that fucker had made it into U.A. as well. After 8 years of obsessing over one fight, he would finally be able to settle the score with that insignificant creature.

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Not all people were born equal. Izuku had learned that lesson at the early age of 4. All Might's debut video had had a huge impact on his young self. It had quite literally inspired him to dedicate his life to becoming a great hero. A dream, which would be normally hard to achieve crumbled to ashes after a single doctor visit.

Despite the crushing despair Izuku didn't give up his dream, which only seemed to fuel the merciless bullying he was subject to.

Yet he soldiered on. He spent the next 4 years begging and asking various deities and the Universe itself to grant him a quirk, to give him a chance to fulfill his dream to help people.

The second lesson he had learned was at the age of 8. Because the Universe had listened.

Izuku still wasn't sure how it had happened. Was he just a late bloomer? Did that weird black and green spider that had bit him near the site of a burning lab have anything to do with it? Probably not. Even though he hadn't been able to find the species, it was all just a coincidence or perhaps a sign. After all, quirks couldn't develop from something as silly as a spider bite.

All he knew was it had been a particularly bad day at school, followed by a night of sheer agony. He had done his best not to scream or cry, but his parents had known something had been wrong. They had suspected he was being bullied and was trying to hide it and they finally got confirmation that night filled with whimpers, where they couldn't do anything but listen.

They had talked about it and made plans, only to be forgotten almost immediately the next morning, when Izuku had miraculously showed them his quirk.

It had been strange. His quirk was in no way related to either of theirs, not to mention it had shown up so late. But that was the thing about quirks - they were still a largely unknown phenomenon.

Instead of pondering the how's and why's, Inko and Hisashi had chosen to celebrate with Izuku. Hisashi had taken a day off and they had all gone to the doctor for confirmation.

His case was noted and put in the distinct pile of rare and exceptional conditions (he was a freak).

Afterwards they spent the day going to a park, eating ice cream, playing around, and ending with a special homemade katsudon for dinner.

Izuku would always cherish that day, because as he was tucked in for bed, he had been told that yes, his dream was possible. He could be a hero.

Not even the following day would spoil that memory. Kacchan had been at it again, picking on another kid. Naturally, Izuku's brain had turned off again, and his legs had put him in front of his one time friend.

Insults had been flung. Explosions had been sent loose. But this time Izuku didn't back off. This time Izuku grabbed Kacchan's wrists. This time, he wouldn't be pushed around and bullied.

To Katsuki's amazement he couldn't move his hands from Deku's iron grip. When had the worthless nobody become this strong?

"I'm not Deku anymore Kacchan!" Izuku said with conviction, glaring at him before squeezing even harder. Katsuki could feel something shifting in his right wrist but he bit his lip. He would not scream for this weakling!

"I have an amazing quirk!" Izuku yelled to the world. "I was told I can be a hero by people I look up to!"

In his surprise Katsuki screamed in pain. It was a coincidence his right wrist happened to shatter at that point. He didn't scream because of Deku!

But Deku seemed to think he had, for he startled and let him go. That made things so much worse and Katsuki saw red. He would not be looked down upon by Deku of all people especially since that shitstain finally seemed to grow a backbone. He screamed and let loose an explosion, which jostled his injured wrist even more. He was so distracted by the pain, he missed Deku's fist which had apparently sent him flying several meters with a broken nose into unconsciousness.

On that day Katsuki had lost. And it would be a long time before he would get the chance to settle the score again.

The fallout of the fight had been immediate and explosive, mostly due to Mitsuki Bakugo. Both children had received a scolding by her for the fight, although once she learned about her son's behaviour towards Izuku, she mostly focused on Katsuki.

Inko hadn't yelled at all. Yet there was clear disappointment directed towards her son, which was actually so much worse. It crushed Izuku and he immediately closed himself in his room when they got back home.

He sat late into the evening, thinking about everything. Why was his Mom disappointed? Didn't she praise his amazing quirk just the previous day? Didn't she say she believed in him, that he would become an amazing hero? Why wasn't she happy then, when he had finally stood up for himself? When he had defended the weak and had done what any other hero would have?

He didn't turn around when the door opened. It was his father, he knew, and right now he couldn't face disappointment from him either.

Izuku heard him approach and sit on the bed. He still didn't turn around.

"I heard what happened, Izuku," Hisashi said and was met with silence. He sighed before he continued. "Do you understand why what you did was wrong?"

"It wasn't!" Izuku blurted before he could stop himself. Yet, now that he had spoken.. "I did what a hero would have done!" He turned around and faced his father. "I stood up to Kacchan and protected someone who couldn't defend themselves! That's not wrong."

He stared into his father's eyes stubbornly, refusing to look away, even when the man spoke.

"And when you were breaking Katsuki's wrist, when you broke his nose and sent him flying with a single punch, were you protecting someone or were you getting revenge for all the bullying?"

Izuku opened his mouth to answer immediately that of course he did it to protect the weak, but no sound came out. He closed it with an audible click and finally looked away.

"Come here, son," Hisashi said, opening his arms and Izuku practically shot into them, making his father grunt from the force. He stroked the crying boy's hair gently. "You're still new to having a quirk, Izuku. You haven't learned how dangerous it can actually be."

Izuku sniffed loudly, but didn't say anything so Hisashi continued. "Everything comes with a price my son. Having a strong and powerful quirk can be amazing, but if you're not careful in how you use it then someone else has to pay for your actions."

Hisashi put his hands on Izuku's shoulders and pushed him back a bit. He leaned down, so they were looking eye to eye. "I want you to remember this, Izuku. With great power, comes great responsibility. Now that you have it, you can't act recklessly anymore. Can you promise me that, son?"

"Yes Dad," Izuku hiccuped. He wasn't sure he understood completely, but he would do his best. "I'm sorry."

Hisashi shook his head and enveloped Izuku into another hug. "No son. I am sorry. Your mother and I knew there was something wrong going on and we've been talking about making some changes.. I'm sorry you had to endure so much for so long, son. I'm sorry we didn't act sooner."

Izuku wrapped his arms around his father and squeezed him hard, which almost blew all the air out of Hisashi. They would really need to work on that quirk.

"We've decided that it's time for a change. I've arranged things with work and will be transferred to another location in a week. We've also decided to switch schools for you."

Izuku felt surprise and relief all at once, so much so, he barely managed to stammer a thank you. His father only laughed and stroked his hair again.

"Of course. Now go and apologize to your Mom, she's been worried since you came back. And do be careful with your strength."

Izuku didn't need another prompt and shot out of his room. He almost tackled his mother, but remembered to be gentle and the two of them hugged and cried for a while. Hisashi only shook his head and smiled.

The following two months had been the best. The new school was amazing, no one knew he had been quirkless until recently. He was even starting to make some tentative friendships, although Izuku was feeling much wearier after how things ended with his previous "best" friend.

His father had also been right. Izuku finally understood what he had meant that night the two of them had talked. He had asked and begged the Universe for a powerful quirk all his life and the Universe had granted his wish.

The Universe also collected its price. 2 months after the Midoriya's had moved, Hisashi had been shot and killed during a robbery that had gone wrong, after a pro hero had failed to stop the culprit.

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 **To be continued..**

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 _From an Alternate Universe of this Alternate Universe:_

Izuku did his best to tune them out. He took a large breath and exhaled slowly, concentrating as much as he could. The teacher said not to hold back so letting loose would be fine. He pulled his arm back and threw.

The ball slammed and buried itself deep into the ground. In his nervousness, Izuku had released it too late.

There was a ding from the device Aizawa was holding that echoed in the resounding silence. "1.2 meters," he said calmly, showing it to Izuku.

The quirk assessment had to be postponed for the following day.

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 **Authour's Note:** This is one of 3 My Hero Academia plots I've had in mind. The other 2 may be written or may be not, but they're different from this one.

I know Spider-Deku (and different!quirkDeku) is being done by others, but I wanted a more different take. He may seem OP, at least relative to his classmates, but I'm trying to stick to the source material. And this is more challenging to write anyway.

Feel free to review and ask questions. If I don't answer you, it means it will be revealed in the story.

Regarding my other stories, check my profile page for an update.

 **Ta-ta ~**

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	2. Chapter 2

**!~¡**

 **Spiderling**

 **!~¡**

 **Chapter 2**

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One of the things Izuku disliked the most was showing off. For one, spiders are shy creatures that mostly kept to themselves and just did their own thing. But more importantly, he felt it cheapened his powers and the price he had had to pay for them. He understood that popularity, showmanship, and lip service played a large role in the rankings of heroes. But that didn't mean he had to enjoy it.

Still, Aizawa-sensei was right. The teachers had to know the students' limits in order to help them improve. He was already quite aware of his own, given all the research he had done into it. Yet he had never tested it in such a way where he would get proper hard data, so he was actually a bit excited.

He wasn't aiming for the top spot, but he'd still follow the motto of "Plus Ultra".

All those thoughts instantly left his mind the moment he lined up for the 50 meter dash and found Katsuki Bakugo next to him. Bakugo, whose quirk must have developed further to his eyes, from the explosive glare directed his way.

"It's been a long time, Deku. I'll crush you like the insect you are, bastard," the ash-blond teen promised menacingly.

Since Izuku's brain had paused for an unscheduled server maintenance, his mouth decided to take control. "Spiders are arachnids, Kacchan. Also, my parents were married and everything."

Some deep part of Katsuki registered the past tense, however the rest of him was too preoccupied to take notice at the moment. "You're still a bug underneath my foot! And stop calling me that!"

"When you stop calling me Deku! And you still have that scowling expression. What happened, did your face freeze permanently like that during the years?" Izuku's mouth found it really enjoyed having freedom like this. His body was on the cusp of losing bowel and bladder control, but it really didn't care.

"HAAAH?" Katsuki grabbed Izuku's collar and readied a massive one in his hand. "You wanna go, fuckmunch?!"

"I'm glad your wrist got better. Shame the same can't be said about your nose," by this point Izuku's brain had realized what was happening and was desperately trying to put the reins on his stampeding mouth. It was too late though, because Bakugo had let loose.

There was an underwhelming _fwip_ and Izuku stared at the palm that had been stopped right in front of his face. The palm now wrapped in white cloth, along with its owner.

"Hey hey, what are you two doing? Do you want to get expelled so quickly?" Aizawa-sensei said dangerously. Izuku noted his hair had gone up and he was staring intently at them. There were also a pair of white goggles around his neck, revealed underneath the scarf.

"Wha.. What happened to my quirk?!" Katsuki yelled.

"I erased it," the teacher said and something clicked in Izuku's mind.

"You are Eraserhead, the underground pro hero!" Izuku blurted.

"Care to explain what's going on here?" the teacher ignored his exclamation.

Seeing Bakugo take a deep breath to completely mis-explain their history, Izuku's brain loosened the hold on his mouth.

"We knew each other from when we were kids!" the spider-boy hastened to say. "I accidentally broke his wrist and then his nose and kind of launched him several meters through the air."

"WHA..!? THAT'S NO-mmpff.." Bakugo was cut off by the scarf wrapping around his mouth.

Everyone in the background took a moment to contemplate what Izuku said, until..

 _How can you do that to someone accidentally?!_ they thought furiously.

Aizawa-sensei's eyes narrowed further. "There is no place for vengeance or settling old grudges in the Department of Heroics. Now, are you going to behave like future heroes should or..?" He trailed off.

"Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!" Izuku bowed quickly so he only heard Bakugo's muttered "Yes, sir."

They lined up at the starting line, neither of them even looking at each other. That's right, no grudges in the heroics department.

Yes, indeed. Absolutely.

When the signal was given, both shot off with incredible speed. Bakugo managed to narrowly win the race, by a split second. He also won the sustained sideways jump thanks to his quirk. They tied in the standing long jump with both clearing the sandbox quite easily, the endurance run, although Izuku felt he could go on for another 8 km, and the seated toe crunch. Those draws didn't surprise Izuku much – Bakugo had built quite the endurance and strength to be able to withstand his own quirk. The ash-blond lost on the softball pitch though, with 705.2 meters, and the grip strength test where Izuku got a score of 620 kg.

It was the upper body strength trial where Izuku really shone. The test itself consisted of a bar attached to a machine. The machine would adjust the resistance of the bar, and the student was supposed to lift it and hold it for at least 5 seconds. It was a trial designed to test one of the basics of heroics – lifting large heavy objects and holding them up long enough for the people underneath to get saved.

Izuku gripped the bar and lifted with almost no effort at all. It started off easy, at only 50kg. He cleared 100 kg, 200 kg and 500 kg with the same ease, and barely broke a sweat off at 1 ton. Everyone had started talking excitedly about his strength at that point which made him embarrassed and almost lose concentration for the 1.5 tons. It got much harder after 2 tons, with Izuku feeling more and more strain after each lift. He hit his limit at 3 tons, where he dropped the bar off with relief after barely managing to clear the 5 seconds.

He knew he had the proportionate strength of a spider, but that differed depending on the species. His abilities mimicked closest the ones of the jumping spider which was one of the strongest species of spider, and while 3 tons was quite the achievement, he still had a long way to go.

On his way back to the other students, he noticed Bakugo glaring heatedly at him. That's right, with this Izuku had won. That thought made his brain halt immediately.

What was he doing? He wasn't here for this. Did a meeting with an old childhood bully manage to break his resolve so easily? While friendly competition was fine and could even be beneficial, Izuku was honest enough with himself to admit it hadn't been about that. Seeing Bakugo after all this time had brought that horrible nickname to the top of his mind. He had wanted to show him again, once and for all that he wasn't a good for nothing. But that wasn't his goal.

He shook his head and turned away from Bakugo. He resolved to ignore him and his attempts to get a rise from him. Aizawa-sensei was right, this was the Department of Heroics - not a place to settle grudges.

"Dude, that was amazing!" Izuku was startled when that blond boy from earlier yelled at him and raised his hand. It took a moment for the spider-boy to realize what that meant and blushing, he gave him a high five. "I did not expect you to have so much strength in that lean scrawny body of yours."

"W-well, this is the first time I did that," Izuku said embarrassed.

"I think it's a first time for all of us doing these kinds of tests," the pink-skinned girl from earlier joked from his left, which almost made him jump. Unfortunately for Izuku, his spider-sense did not agree with his brain that talking with girls fell in the dangerous interactions category, so he never did get a warning when said girls approached to talk to him.

"N-no, well I l-lift heavy objects when I train, but I never knew exactly how much they weighted.."

"I have to say, you keep surprising me," a tall boy with straight hair and glasses approached. "First at the entrance exam when you figured out the true purpose of the test and now here."

"O-oh, that was.. I didn't so much as figure it out, but more.. I just thought helping people was more important than destroying robots," Izuku said embarrassed and looked away. Moving and switching schools hadn't done much to improve his social skills. While the stigma of being quirkless didn't follow him, his shy nature and demeanour did. He always thought that was another effect of his quirk. Losing his father at an early age, and his obsession with his quirk and heroism (not to mention those trust issues because of Bakugo) didn't help much either, so he tended to be by his lonesome, even in the new environment.

It was surprising to see so many people want to talk to the nerdy loner who kept to himself.

"I see," the boy in glasses' reply made him come back to the conversation. "Your resolve is truly commendable. I now understand I can do well to learn from your example. But where are my manners, I didn't properly introduce myself! I am Tenya Iida!"

"That's right man! You were late so we didn't get to talk beforehand! I'm Denki Kaminari" the blond boy introduced himself.

"We did get to see that cool entrance though!" the pink-skinned girl exclaimed, which made Izuku blush even further. "I'm Mina Ashido and tell me, did you aim for the chair or was that just a coincidence?"

"I'm Izuku Midoriya, pleasure to meet you all," he bowed. "W-well-"

"If you brats want to socialize, you should probably go somewhere else," Aizawa-sensei cut in and they all instantly looked at the teacher. "Good, the trials are all done with. Time to present the results." he clicked on the device he was holding and a hologram with all their names placed between 1 and 20 appeared.

The only one surprised that Izuku was at 1st place was Izuku himself. But after he thought about it, he realised it wasn't that surprising. His quirk had helped him achieve incredible results in some trials, while placing consistently in the top 5 in all. He noted Iida was 5th, Ashido was 10th and Kaminari was 17th. Excluding Iida, he hadn't seen any obvious quirk use from the other two so he wondered what their quirks were. Kaminari's was probably related to lightning in some way, given the black lightning painted in his hair. Izuku was never one to ignore obvious signs like that from the Universe. As for Ashido, she had to have some physical mutation quirk given her bizarre appearance. While they talked he had taken a chance to look closer, without hopefully seeming creepy. She had a pair of slightly curved horns protruding from underneath her pink curly hair and her eyes were yellow, with black sclera.

He wondered who Minoru Mineta at 20th was, but a panicked scream from a really short boy with purple balls for hair answered him.

"Don't worry, I won't expel you," Aizawa-sensei said and mostly everyone was still for a bit before exclaiming loudly in surprise.

"C'mon guys, use your brains," a tall girl with a big ponytail said with exasperation. "It was obviously a ruse to draw out our full potential." Mineta seemed to let a sigh of relief at that.

"Ruse?" Aizawa-sensei said and stared at the ponytail girl, making her lose colour in her face. "If you'd let me finish you'd have realized how foolish that is. I'm here to judge and sign off on whether you'd all be heroes one day. If I judge someone is below the zero-mark and is merely half-assing their way to a dream, it's not cruel to kick them out." His eyes passed over and met the stare of every single student. "I kicked out a whole class last year," he ignored the gasps of horror and continued as his eyes settled on Mineta, "and this year I'm kicking you from the Heroics program. But I am not expelling you from the school, you can continue trying from the General Educations program. Or you can transfer to a different school with a Heroics program, I'm sure the fact you managed to pass the Heroics exam for U.A. will play in your favour. The choice will be yours." Aizawa-sensei finished and approached the boy. Ignoring his tears and shocked expression, he placed a hand on the back of Mineta's head and started leading him away. "As for the rest of you, change into your uniforms and go back to the classroom. You can all take the time to properly introduce each other until I come back. Now is finally the right moment to socialize and get to know the competition."

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The walk to the classroom was filled with silence. No one seemed to want to talk after what happened. With one single action, Aizawa-sensei had showed everyone what was truly at stake here – their future as heroes.

Some weren't showing much emotion. Some seemed obviously frazzled and nervous. A few even looked pleased that U.A. could back up its reputation of highest academia that produced only the best of the best heroes.

They decided to do introductions by student numbers. Most kept it short, only name, age, and name of their quirk, although there were some extravagant individuals. Izuku resolved not to involve himself too much with whatever was going on with Aoyama. He also noted Ashido had a loud and bubbly personality, and her quirk was named Acid because she could secrete it from her body at will. That surprised him since he thought she'd have a different type of physical quirk. There was a girl with a similar quirk like his, except hers was Frog. The nice-girl's name was Ochaco Urakara and while she was introducing herself Izuku couldn't help but remember how he'd made a fool of himself and from the snickering when he did his own introduction, it seemed others remembered too. He had been right about Kaminari's quirk – it had to do with electricity. Bakugo didn't miss the opportunity to declare his goal of being number one and for the rest of the extras to stay out of his way. There was a moment of tense silence when Mineta's turn came, but the ponytail girl, Yaoyorozu, rallied quickly and finished the introductions.

They didn't have to wait long for Aizawa-sensei, who after coming back dismissed everyone for the day. The Quirk Apprehension test had taken quite a lot of time, after all. Izuku quickly grabbed his things and rushed to follow the teacher who had somehow managed to jump into his sleeping bag and slither halfway through the corridor.

"E-excuse me, Aizawa-sensei," he called and the teacher rolled to his side and looked up at him, with his tired bloodshot eyes. Izuku couldn't help but compare him to some weird caterpillar at that moment.

"This better not be why you stopped me, Midoriya.." Aizawa-sensei said. Izuku realized his treacherous mouth must have blurted his thoughts again and rushed to apologize.

"It's fine," the teacher dismissed his ramblings. "What do you need?"

"W-well, I was wondering if I could use the chemistry lab," Izuku said nervously. "Um, maybe I should show you." He took out one of his web-shooter gloves, put it on, and fired some webbing at the ceiling.

Aizawa-sensei stared at him, "I hope you're planning on cleaning that."

"W-what?! Of course, but actually it will dissolve by itself in 15 or so minutes," Izuku hastened to explain. "I made these myself, they shoot ropes of really tough webbing which I can use for various tasks. And this," he showed him a small canister, "is where the substance is stored before being shot out. However, I'm running low on it so I wanted to ask if I could use the chemistry facilities to make more."

Aizawa-sensei raised a brow at him. "Why didn't you give the formula along with your specifications for your hero costume?"

"A-actually.. I'm planning on patenting the formula and keeping it a secret. I think it can have many applications and benefit society a lot, but at the same time if villains got a hold of it, things could get messy," he cringed at the accidental pun, but still did his best to look at Aizawa-sensei in the eyes. He didn't mention he hadn't given any specifications to the support company at all.

The pro-hero stared a moment longer at him, before he told Izuku to follow him. It was weird walking after what looked like a caterpillar in the corridors and attracting a lot of attention in the process, but this time Izuku managed to keep his mouth from blurting that out. They finally reached a set of large entrance doors made from what looked like steel and a lot of rivets.

"This is the workshop," Aizawa-sensei said after getting up. He took a hand out of the sleeping bag and knocked on the doors. "Power Loader, who is in charge of the support class, is the one you want to speak to in order to get access. He should be in, giving a tour to his new students."

Just as he finished the doors opened to reveal a skinny man with long orange spiky hair wearing a large yellow helmet. Izuku instantly recognized him.

"Aizawa? Is everything okay?" Power Loader questioned.

"Yeah, everything's fine, Higari. This is Izuku Midoriya, one of my students. He needs access to the chemistry lab for.. I'll let him explain. I have to go look at candidates to fill the spot that just opened in my class. I'm leaving him in your care." Without waiting for a reply, Aizawa-sensei slinked to the floor and began crawling away.

Power Loader shook his head and muttered, "At least it's only one this year." which sent a shiver down Izuku's spine. Just one more confirmation of how real things were now. The pro hero looked down at him and introduced himself. "My name is Maijima Higari. Please, come in."

"Izuku Midoriya, pleased to meet you sir," Izuku bowed quickly and followed the teacher in.

"I have to say, it's very rare for students from the Heroics department to come work on something themselves. Usually they just send a request in. It's quite refreshing."

"Well sensei, it's more because I wish to patent the formula of what I want to make and keep it a secret. It can be dangerous in the wrong hands." Izuku then quickly explained about his web-shooters and web formula, hoping he wouldn't offend the teacher.

"Everyone is entitled to their secrets, even heroes. Perhaps, especially heroes, given the field we are working in," Power Loader dismissed his worries at the end with a smile, and continued. "You're coming at a good time – I was just giving the tour to my students and telling them the safety rules and regulations of using the workshop. If you plan on coming here regularly to work on things, you should know them as well."

Izuku looked around the workshop. It was so large! And it gave both an orderly and a messy vibe at the same time. There were so many tools and materials as well! Oh the things he could do here – no more going through trash and scrap to find what he needed.

"Yes sensei, I think I would love to come back here often."

Power Loader smiled and turned to the rest of the students who were looking around and exploring the workshop. "Everyone," he got their attention, "this is Izuku Midoriya from class 1-A. He has expressed interest in working on some things for his hero gear, so you'll be sharing the workshop with him in the future. Please make sure to welcome him."

The teacher then went on to give the safety rules and regulations lecture. It was pretty standard stuff - make sure to wear proper safety equipment, no starting fires unsupervised, no working with electricity unsupervised, no experimentation on life forms unsupervised, no creation of weapons grade explosives unsupervised, no work on bioengineered plagues unsupervised, no addition of instant kill mode to costumes unsupervised.. All in all, Izuku already expected most of that.

Afterwards he was shown to a corner of the room that contained two chemistry sets and various available chemicals and acids. To his delight, the lab had everything he needed on hand. He put his backpack on a corner of a desk, took out a notebook titled "All things Spider, vol. 6" and opened it on the section with his formula notes. Before he started mixing the ingredients, he put on the goggles and one of the lab coats like Higari-sensei had insisted.

He used the first set to start on the regular formula. The only thing left at the end was to let the chemical reaction runs its course, so he switched to the second set and started working on an experimental modified version.

While 15 minutes was pretty good, especially when he started patrolling around the city more often once he was a hero, it was still insufficient for certain tasks - like detaining villains for a longer period of time or holding up debris of a collapsing building long enough for evacuations to happen.

So far he had managed to modify the formula to extend the time to 30 minutes, unfortunately at the cost of the strength of the web. Of course, even if he managed to make it stronger, he'd still need to modify his web-shooters so he could use two different type of cartridges. Izuku figured if he switched to a longer lasting web entirely, he'd get a lot more complaints from people.

So after he left the chemical reaction of the 2nd modified formula to run its course as well, he took out one web-shooter and grabbed a tool kit. He separated it from the glove first and then began disassembling it. The challenge would be cramming a second canister in without having to sacri-

The hairs on the back of his head stood up as his spider sense jolted. He quickly turned around, just in time to see a pink haired girl with yellow eyes invade his personal space. He immediately jumped to the ceiling and shot a web at her, only to realise his other shooter was still in his backpack, since he hadn't thought he'd need it in U.A. of all places. Something to change in the future.

"Whoa easy there, you startled me!" the girl exclaimed in surprise.

"That's my line!" Izuku yelled back, still hanging upside down.

"Those are some good reflexes," the girl said and turned her attention to the disassembled web-shooter that had ended up on the ground. She bent down and picked it up, "I couldn't help but notice you were working on some invention and just had to come take a look! So what is this and why is it broken? Did you make it yourself? It looks homemade.. and kind of low quality actually."

"Hey, I had to use thrown out scrap to make that, give me a break," Izuku said, annoyed that some stranger was touching his web-shooter. He fluidly fell back to the ground, landing on his feet and facing the girl. "And it's not broken; I was taking it apart for modifications. Can I have it back, please?"

She ignored him, seemingly more focused on turning the web-shooter and inspecting it all over, "What does it do? Wait, I can see a trigger.. so what does it shoot?"

"Webs," Izuku answered and deftly grabbed it from her hands. "There's a special fluid contained in a small canister. I was looking at modifying it to add an additional slot for one so I can have different types of why am I explaining this to you?" Izuku asked rather confused with what was happening.

The girl ignored him, again, and entered his personal bubble, again, to have a better look from his hands. "Oh I see. You probably don't want to sacrifice the size of the canister and volume of the fluid for that additional space either."

"I'm.. Y-yes, that's wha-" his spider sense practically screamed at him. Quickly realizing what was about to happen, he grabbed the girl and ignoring her startled yelp, jumped to a nearby desk and hid them behind it, while yelling "EVERYONE DUCK!"

The explosion that followed wasn't loud or grand. Really, there was just some glass shattering followed by the usual sound his web-shooters made when they shot. Just _more_. It only lasted about 10 seconds too and the two students peeked from behind the desk after it was over.

Oh, that wasn't too bad. Izuku had been worried that the entire room would be covered in webbing, but it was actually pretty contained. The entire wall the second set had been against was covered in a thick white web, naturally burying the set underneath as well. It had also spread to the corner and the other wall, but thankfully the first set was unaffected. He quickly jumped over the desk and removed the beaker with the regular web fluid from the fire. At least he caught that one in time.

Izuku's spider sense tingled again and he heard from right behind him, "Wow.. I'm impressed and kind of jealous. You managed to blow the experiment on your first day."

"You distracted me!" Izuku shot back, "I wasn't trying to do that!"

"Now now, don't blame others for your mistakes," the pinkhead said while inspecting the wall of web and poking it with a glass rod. "I know my genius can be awesomely distracting, but you should've been paying attention." The glass rod was caught in the web and after two tugs, she just left it hanging there. Izuku felt a headache coming and pressed hard on the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

There was an insistent clearing of a throat and both students slowly and carefully turned around to look at a very unimpressed Power Loader. "I concur with Hatsume," the teacher said. "An accident in the workshop on the first day, this is definitely a first."

Izuku's body immediately bent into a 90 degree bow with apologies streaming from his mouth so he missed his spider sense warning him of the slap on the back that toppled him to the ground.

"Don't be discouraged!" he heard the girl's voice saying cheerily from above, "Mistakes are part of the process of creation! Just learn from this one and carry on with the same vigour in the pursuit of _Science_ and _Innovation_!"

Higari-sensei got the feeling that this girl would be trouble. He sighed and helped Izuku to his feet, making a mental note to keep a close eye on the boy as well. "So, how are you going to clean this?"

"Well, the web is pretty sticky and short of removing the walls, it's normally a bit difficult to get rid off. We could probably use acid or something similar to dissolve it, although it could damage the floor and walls. Fire would do it of course, if we could contain it." Noticing the teacher's look, Izuku hastened to say, "Of course, there's no need for that! The web is supposed to dissolve by itself in 15 minutes. Except.. Oh.."

"That doesn't sound good," the pinkhead said cheerfully. Izuku gave her an annoyed look, but continued.

"Well, I did a slight modification on this one to increase the time before it dissolved while uhm.. Hopefully retaining its strength," Izuku winced as he said that.

"So.. How long?" Power Loader asked.

"I.. don't know? It shouldn't be that much longer thought, maybe 20 to 30 minutes?" the spider-boy said with hope in his voice.

From that day onward, that particular corner of the workshop would become known as the Spider's Nest or the Nest for short. It was the area that was unofficially reserved for Izuku and occasionally Mei Hatsume when she invaded it, since no one else wanted to get close to the webs. Of course, they could've used someone with a fire or acid quirk to remove the web, but Power Loader opted to keep it to serve as a reminder to the two teens of the effects of improper experimentation. And besides, the three of them were curious how long it would actually take before it dissolved. They were all inventors at heart after all.

Speaking of Hatsume, Izuku achieved two more firsts, in addition to the first day lab incident – the first time he talked for so long with a girl without being embarrassed or stammering over his words, mostly due to the incredible annoyance he felt; and the first time his spider sense agreed with his brain that interactions with a girl, should be classified as dangerous.

 **!~¡**

 **To be continued..**

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 **Author's ramblings:** Uh-oh! Is that the last we see of Mineta!?

I never liked the character. I understand his purpose in the story is to set the bar for heroics really low and to act (unsuccessfully) as the comedic relief. Unfortunately for him, I think I can manage the comedic part of this story just fine.

And shame on you Izuku, blaming an innocent girl with a drive for invention and a disability of having absolutely no social manners at all for your mistakes! Tisk tisk.

Thanks for all the reviews, favs, and follows. Keep them coming, let me know what you think. Update schedule is on my profile page.

 **Ta-ta~**

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	3. Chapter 3

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 **Spiderling**

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 **Chapter 3**

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"Safe!" Izuku yelled in relief as he landed on his chair, without falling this time too. He had promised himself not to repeat what had happened yesterday, but then those elementary school kids almost got ran over by a bus.

"Not quite," Aizawa-sensei's unimpressed voice surprised him so much, he fell sideways from his chair. Damn it, one of these days he will really stick the landing.

"One of these days I hope you'll use the door," Eraserhead said in a bored tone and Izuku immediately turned crimson at the laughter that followed. Damn it, mouth! "Make sure to come see me after classes today."

"Now that we're all here," the teacher continued, "I came earlier today, because I wanted to introduce your new fellow student, before classes started." Everyone tensed at the reminder of what had happened to Mineta yesterday and looked at his replacement. Interestingly, he had purple hair as well, although his was indigo, not ball shaped and sticking upwards. His face was rather plain looking, despite the dark circles under his eyes.

"The name's Hitoshi Shinso. Please take care of me," the boy said and bowed slightly. "My quirk is Brainwashing." He didn't seem to want to elaborate on his ominous statement, so the teacher directed him to his new seat, which happened to be directly behind Izuku. In all the commotion yesterday, Izuku hadn't noticed Bakugo was in front of him as well, until they had done their introductions. On the bright side, his seat was close to the window.

Lessons started afterwards. The schedule was quite simple really - before noon there were regular classes with various pro heroes who each seemed to have a subject they were good in and could teach. It was quite bizarre to be taught literature by Present Mic or math by Ectoplasm.

Then came lunch and even the school cook used to be a pro hero - Lunch-Rush. Izuku secluded himself to one of the corner tables and took out his "All Things Spider, vol. 6" notebook. He started looking at the sketches for his modified web-shooter. Despite yesterday's setback, he was determined to make it work and it'd be good to be prepared.

"So I heard an interesting rumour earlier," he was startled when Kaminari sat in front of him on the same table, followed by Ashido and some floating clothes. Wait, that's right, that was the invisible girl, Hagakure. "Apparently you paired up with some pink devil and blew up the workshop."

"Wha.. WHAT?!" Izuku stammered shocked. "Who told you about that?!"

"Wait, it's true?!" Ashido said excitedly and leaned forward. "That's impressive, on your first day too!"

"No-no-no-no-no-no!" Izuku waved his hands, "I did not destroy the entire workshop!" His spider sense tingled. Oh no..

"It was more like a corner. And it's not destroyed but covered in sticky webbing entirely," the pink devil herself made an appearance and plopped next to him. "I'm disappointed, I thought I'd be the first one to have an experiment go wrong in a hilarious way."

"Covered in webs?" an unfamiliar voice said. Since no one was visibly moving their mouths, Izuku figured it must have been Hagakure. "What did you do, sneeze?"

"It was her fault," Izuku exclaimed in his embarrassment, pointing frantically at Hatsume.

"Yes, apparently I dazzled him with my genius intellect and stunning good looks."

Izuku sputtered, his face completely crimson, which caused everyone to laugh.

"I'm disappointed in you, Midoriya," Iida said, seating himself on his other side. "How could you damage property of such a prestigious school as U.A. on your first day? And why are you wearing that glove while eating?"

"It was not intentional, okay? I just made some slight modifications to the formula I was working on, I did not expect it to blow up like that," Izuku tried to explain himself. "And this," he showed his hand wearing the web-shooter glove before glancing at Hatsume, "call it being prepared for surprises."

"And who are you?" Ashido asked her fellow pinkhead.

"Mei Hatsume is the name, future founder and owner of Tsume Industries," the other girl introduced herself.

Izuku wasn't sure what was going on. Why were people sitting with _him_? While he had some good acquaintances in his middle school, no one really wanted to have lunch with the nerd who went off about who the best heroes were and why, or gave various random trivia about spiders. And yet, he couldn't help himself be pulled into the conversation that followed. It was a new experience for him, being teased, joking around, and talking about random topics with other students.

By the time he got back to class and the bell rang, he was still reeling from completely filling his social interactions quota for the entire month during a single lunch break.

"I AM HERE!" All Might's voice boomed. "Walking through the door normally!"

A lot of his classmates yelled excitedly at seeing All Might, but Izuku had them all beat. In less than a second, he was hanging upside down from a web in front of his favourite hero. "Can you please sign this?" he squeaked, holding out his "All Things Spider vol. 7" notebook, right in front of All Might's face. Then he realized what he had done and prepared for the incoming onslaught of laughter and ridicule. Except there wasn't any.

Everyone in the class followed his example and crowded around All Might, each holding a notebook. Izuku even spotted Bakugo at the edge, although the boy was doing his best to look like he didn't really care if he got it or not.

All Might simply laughed merrily, before taking out a marker. After the impromptu autograph session, the class started.

"Welcome! To the Foundational Hero Studies class! Here you will learn the basics of heroics through different trials and exercises!" All Might yelled, striking out different poses. "And we will begin with the Trial of Battle!" All Might then took a small remote and pressed a button.

"Of course, it won't be a Hero class if you youngsters aren't wearing proper attire!" Panels from the side wall opened and various numbered cases appeared. "Behold! Here are the costumes and hero gear you've requested! Make sure to always properly inspect it and take care of it from now on, especially before going out on the field! Now get changed and gather at school grounds β!"

Izuku didn't even bother going to his numbered case. He knew it'd be empty. Everything he needed was inside his backpack. He smiled as he put it on, and headed for the changing rooms.

 **!~¡**

Costume making was a family activity for the Midoriya's. Of course, it only started around 3 years prior to Izuku entering U.A. Before that, the subject of heroism occupied a rather sore spot.

Things weren't easy after Hisashi's death. The problems weren't so much financial, his father had had Accidental death by villain insurance. The hero agency of the hero responsible had also offered to pay them an incredible amount of money, so they would keep quiet about the incident and the hero's fault in it.

The Midoriya's had naturally refused such blatant insult. To this day, they had the option to go to the media and tell the story of how the pro hero had let a villain escape because of some petty spat, which had directly led to Hisashi's murder. Some may call it cruel or blackmail, to hang it over their head like that. Inko and Izuku called it motivation - to be a better hero.

Unfortunately, that point of unity didn't do much to bridge the chasm of disagreement that had opened between them.

"I found your notes again, Izuku," his mom was waiting for him after he came back from school. He noticed his "All things Spider", volumes 1 through 3 were laid out on the coffee table. "I thought we've talked about this, I don't want you to become a hero." Inko didn't raise her voice when she said that. She never did. Instead there was a sad disappointed tinge to it, that was actually much worse.

The 13 year old Izuku let out a sigh and took off his backpack and sat on the couch. He was silent for a moment, before he opened it and took out volumes 4 and 5, after which he put them next to the others.

Throughout the past 5 years, this was a frequent argument. Well, more like debate. Neither of the Midoriya's were really the type of people that raised their voices.

Izuku never really bothered to hide his research and notes into his quirk or his plan to be a hero. He couldn't lie to his mother for one, and he also felt he needed to convince her, that he should indeed use his powers to make the world better.

On the other hand, Inko never went too far in her disagreement. She was close to throwing away his notes once, but she made the mistake of reading some of them first. After seeing the amount of work, dedication, and passion her son had poured into them, she didn't have the heart to discard it all.

So she simply tried to appeal to him. That she didn't want to lose him like Hisashi, that just the thought of it made her heart stop; that it didn't have to be him the one to walk down that difficult path, that there were already plenty of great heroes in the world, like All Might; that he could help and save people in other ways, whether through being a doctor, a scientist, or something else.

Yet it always came down to those words Hisashi had told Izuku, before they had moved here. Words that she kind of agreed with herself, given how her husband had died. Inko was heartbroken and proud at the same time, that her son was so good and felt so responsible.

Izuku steeled himself for another familiar conversation. So he was really surprised when this time it started differently. His Mom picked up the paper bag he somehow hadn't noticed before and gave it to him, without saying much or looking at him. He opened it and stared at the contents in confusion. Then he took out a dark green hoodie with red sleeves, along with a pair of dark green pants. But it was the red boots at the bottom that finally clued him in to what this was - these clothes were the exact colour scheme of one of the costume sketches in his "All things Spider vol. 3" notebook. He stared at his mother in utter surprise.

"Unlike you, son of mine, I know when to give up," his Mom sighed. "Perhaps I've always known it was a losing battle to try and get you to have a different dream.. you never gave up, even when we thought you were quirkless, even when we didn't support you as we should have. If this is the path you've chosen," Inko took a deep breath, "then this time I've decided to support you completely. All I want to ask of you is to let me."

She looked at him, straight in the eyes, "Please be honest with me, when it comes to Heroics. Even if you're hurt or in trouble in the future, I'll feel a lot better if I know exactly what is going on."

Izuku couldn't help himself, he stood up and gave his Mom.. well, not a crushing hug, not even a tight one (okay, so he had learned how strong he could be), but a warm one.

"I promise, Mom," he whispered while doing his best not to cry. He had teared up, but he wouldn't cry!

"Good," she gently ran her fingers through his hair. "Now how about we work on your costume idea? I like the colour scheme, but I think it could use a lot of improvement."

 **!~¡**

The school subsidy had been a boon, since he always felt a bit guilty when his mother spent her hard earned money on buying clothes, textile, and other supplies for costumes. It was why he had made his web-shooters from things he had found in a dump and why he didn't ask for his own chemistry set.

Of course, Izuku didn't use the subsidy like the rest of his classmates probably did. Instead of revealing the specifics of his quirk and abilities to a 3rd party company, he asked the school if he could just be reimbursed for the materials he used in the creation and maintenance of his costumes and gear. At this point the homemade feel of it was just as big a part in his hero identity as his powers and dogma. While an odd request, the school administration had agreed with the Principle personally signing off.

This costume was the latest iteration. It had actually been his Mom's idea to use a jumpsuit for the core, to maintain simplicity and for quickly putting on, instead of the previous two-piece combo of shirt and pants. The colour scheme was the usual - the front of the upper half and outer sides of the arms were red with black aesthetic webs, while the rest was dark green. There was a black spider symbol right on his chest that looked like it was resting on the webs and a bigger and rounder red spider symbol that had 4 stubby legs on each side on his back. After he had the jumpsuit on, he then put on a pair of red webbed boots with thinner than normal soles and a pair of webbed red gloves that had the web-shooters integrated within them. Finally came the mask and this one was a completely new design - it had the same red webbed aesthetic for most of it, except for the eyes that were white and had a big green outline. It had taken a lot of days to get the green outline to move accordingly with his facial expressions. Both the Midoriya's had felt it made the mask feel too cold or impersonal otherwise, which would sometimes be detrimental for hero work.

Because of the simplicity of his costume, Izuku was actually the first one ready and was already sitting on a lamp post outside the entrance to the area. His mask wasn't entirely on, but bunched upwards since he had opted to keep his face visible for now. He recognized these grounds from his entrance exam. That observation though was made by only a small portion of his mind. Most of it was too occupied with fan-girling over the fact that he was alone with All Might. He felt incredibly nervous, but also felt he should apologize.

"Um.. All Might-sensei," he said and cringed. He could feel the trembling in his voice and it annoyed him. This wasn't proper hero behaviour, he shouldn't turn into a nervous wreck just because he was talking with his idol who happened to be the inspiration to become a hero in the first place.

"Ah, I recognize this costume from the entrance exam. You are young Midoriya!" All Might said in his usual cheerful voice with his usual cheerful grin. "I must commend you on getting ready so fast and being here first! Being able to prepare quickly can sometimes be the difference between saving someone and failing!"

He was being praised by All Might! _He was being praised by All Might!_ Why was he freaking out?! And why was it getting difficult to breath?! He also heard All Might chuckle. Oh Gods, he had said that out loud!

Okay, okay, deep breaths.

Izuku managed to actually calm down surprisingly quickly. "Thank you, sensei, I uhm.. I was thinking of the same when we designed it," he finally said when he found his voice. "But I wanted to apologize for earlier. About asking for the autograph, I didn't want to delay the lesson. It's just, you've been an inspiration for such a long time and I kind moved before I realized what was happening." All Might chuckled and Izuku felt a bit foolish. He had probably heard this excuse countless of times before, considering who he was.

"Nonsense, my boy! It is refreshing to see someone so earnest these days! And I must say the first impression I got from you during the practical portion of the hero exam was spot on! But tell me, why did you focus on helping your competition rather than fighting the villains?"

"W-well.. I've always thought that helping people out should take priority over having flashy battles," Izuku said bashfully, as memories of Bakugo laughing maniacally whenever he fought sprung to his mind. "I couldn't really help it, like with the autograph earlier my body moved by itself."

All Might laughed. "I like that attitude young Midoriya! Being straightforward and earnest are good traits for becoming a great hero! However, there is one thing I'd like you to consider for the future!" All Might said lifting a finger. "Perhaps if you had taken out more villain bots, less people would have been put in danger in the first place?"

Izuku's eyes widened in surprise and realisation. That was something he hadn't really considered before. All Might's grin seemed to grow more. "That's right my boy, Heroics isn't always an easy and straightforward path to follow! That line of thinking also carries a lot of pitfalls in itself! But sometimes, often most times a hero has to look at the big picture and consider a situation or a problem from multiple angles before committing to action!"

"Now, I can see your classmates finally approaching!" All Might motioned towards the large entrance to the training grounds from where almost all of the students from 1-A appeared in their costumes, walking very deliberately (and kind of slowly), before raising his voice. "Yes! Let's see what you're all made of, youngsters! The Trial of Battle is about to begin!"

The number 1 hero then quickly inspected everyone's costumes. "Oh there are some interesting styles! I like what I'm seeing, very cool!" he gave a thumbs up which caused a lot of the students to preen. He then noticed someone who was wearing the school gym uniform. "Ah yes, you're young Hitoshi Shinso! Apologies but due to your later acceptance into Heroics, it will take a bit of time for your costume to be ready!"

"No, that's not a problem. This will be sufficient for now," the indigo haired boy said simply.

"Sensei!" what looked like a shiny mech raised its hand earnestly. "Are we going to be using the mock-city from the entrance exams as the location for the trial?"

Izuku's mind finally came back from impromptu thinking session it had been in and he let out a sigh. _I'll think more on this later_ , he thought and put his mask down completely. He then suspended himself on a web from the lamp post and gave his classmates a proper look. The costumes ranged from casual, to practical, to extravagant. He was incredibly grateful that his face was hidden, because he couldn't help his eyes bulge out when he noticed some of attire the girls were wearing.

"Good question! In fact, this will be an indoor trial!" All Might then went on to explain some of the basics of the job. While some fights with the stupider villains as well as disaster relief tended to be out in the open, in truth most of the Heroic work happened behind the scenes. Things such as thwarting nefarious villain plots, stopping drug and human trafficking, going up against organized crime - really any villain with some brain cells to rub together knew operating in the shadows gave them a much bigger likelihood of success. After all the best way to win against heroes would be to not get their attention in the first place.

"Now for this test, you'll be separated into "Hero" and "Villain" teams for a two-on-two team battle!"

"What about the foundational training?" Asui asked.

"This is the foundational training!" All Might made a fist. "Except this time you won't be fighting against robots you can carelessly destroy!" All Might was then peppered with a multitude of questions at once until he yelled out in annoyance for everyone to be quiet and patient for him to explain, which he did from a small crib sheet.

The premise of the trial was pretty simple - the villain team have a nuclear device they have to hide somewhere in a 5 story building. The hero team have to infiltrate the building and attempt to stop them by either incapacitating the villains or retrieving the device. However, if the villains incapacitated the heroes or managed to protect the device until the time limit passed, then they would win. All Might then went on to explain how the teams would be chosen and why it would be at random.

Something about the trial didn't sit right with Izuku so he raised his hand, although considering he was hanging upside down it actually looked like he was pointing downwards. Still, it caught All Might's attention.

"Yes young Midoriya?"

"Sensei, isn't it also important to capture the villains even if the nuclear device is retrieved? Otherwise they could just escape and plan another dangerous terrorist attack."

"Ho-ho! That is true indeed, Midoriya my boy! That exercise is a bit more complex and is usually saved for later in the school year! For example, if the heroes retrieve the nuclear device, then engage the villains, they can run the risk of being defeated, which would result in mission failure! Yet, you've raised an interesting point and I think we can slightly modify this trial!"

"If the heroes win by retrieving the device, then the villains can still make an attempt to escape! If at least one exits the building before the time limit, then they would earn some credit, despite failing! However! If the heroes manage to capture them before the time limit, then they would earn that extra credit! And if neither team succeeds in their secondary objective, then the exercise simply ends without any extra credit given!"

The students of 1-A agreed with the modification, some even exclaimed that it would make things more exciting and give the villains some hope to recover, in case they lost. Izuku didn't react much, when Ashido and Iida praised him for his idea, although that was due in large part to his mask.

The teams were split and Izuku groaned internally. The Universe really hated him. He swung on his web before releasing, did a flip in the air and landed with a crouch right next to his teammate.

"Hey can you believe this? We must be linked or something," Urakara said excitedly. "Pleased to have you!"

Oh thank God, Izuku was worried that yesterday's blunder would've made things awkward between them. He had thought about apologizing again, but after seeing her want to move forward as if nothing had happened, he decided to just follow her example with the slight modification of keeping his mouth shut for good this time. He stood up and gave her a thumbs up.

"I like your costume by the way, it looks simple, but practical! I wish I'd been more specific with my request, mine is pretty tight at certain places," she said in embarrassment making Izuku involuntary (honest!) look at those places.

Thankfully he was saved from his mouth by All Might-sensei who was about to draw the first battle participants.

"All right youngsters, the first two teams to go against each other are.. Team A as the heroes!.."

 _Oh, that's us,_ Izuku thought.

"..And team D as the villains!"

There was an audible slap and when the students looked around they saw Izuku with a palm against his eyes (or the eyes of his mask). Katsuki on the other hand seemed like it was Christmas, New Years and his birthday all at the same time.

"In this trial, the villains go inside the building first and have 5 minutes for preparation and getting into the true mindset for evildoing!" All Might-sensei continued as if nothing significant had happened. "The heroes meanwhile can prepare a plan of attack and once the prep time is over the exercise will begin! As for the rest of us, we will observe the clash unfold from the monitoring room which will provide feed from the surveillance cameras inside the building!"

The number 1 hero than spread his arms while his head faced upwards, "This is a practical exercise, so don't hold back! But remember, you are facing live opponents now, so if things go out of hand I will stop the exercise and disqualifications will be handed!"

Everyone split afterwards with the two teams heading for the building while All Might and the rest of class 1-A headed for the observation room. Bakugo and Iida silently went inside the building when they reached it, while Midoriya and Ochaco remained outside. The two of them were looking at the sheets given to them by All Might.

"A layout of the facility huh.. We should probably memorise this," the girl said. "But I'm relieved, it looks like we aren't under the threat of expulsion like with Aizawa-sensei. All Might-sensei really is a nice person like his image on TV."

"Urakara-san," Midoriya spoke seriously, addressing his classmate for the first time. "I may have a plan on how to deal with them."

"What, already? Wow, you must be so confident!" Ochaco said surprised.

"N-not at all," Midoriya stammered despite himself and took a moment to get his thoughts in order, "I'm actually quite nervous with facing Bakugo in open battle. His quirk is quite formidable."

Ochaco noticed for the first time that there were shivers running over her teammate's shoulders and hands. "Oh that's right, the two of you almost had a fight yesterday. So you really do know each other, what's the story behind that?"

"Know each other? I guess you could say that." Midoriya let out a sigh, "We used to be childhood friends. "Kacchan" has always been confident since everything he has tried to do always came to him easily. His ego got even more inflated when he manifested his amazing quirk."

"I on the other hand.. was a special case. I didn't manifest my quirk until I was 8 years old. By then I had the label of quirkless attached to me and he would call me Deku, which is another way to read the kanji in my name, meaning good for nothing. He always seemed to take pleasure during those 4 years in making me know I was inferior to him."

"When my quirk finally manifested, I naturally wanted to show him up, which lead to uhm.. An accident." Ochaco got the impression Izuku was probably blushing, even if she couldn't see his face. "Anyway, we haven't seen each other since then. Until yesterday that is."

"Wow.." Ochaco muttered, "I'm really glad I didn't call you Deku as well, now that I know the history behind that name. When I heard it yesterday, it reminded me of "You can do it!" rather than good for nothing." She heard a sharp intake of breath and noticed the eyes of Midoriya's mask had gotten really wide. How had he managed to make them move like that?

The boy then chuckled. "Oh I just imagined Bakugo's face if he heard you. He'd have probably burst a blood vessel in idgination. I'm half tempted to let you call me that just to piss him off."

"I think I'll stick with Izuku," Ochaco smiled not knowing how it caused her classmate to blush underneath his mask again. "But I'm amazed, you two really have it out for each other. So this must be a fated battle between men." She was surprised when Izuku let out a snort.

"Not at all," he said crossing his arms and looking upwards. "I may hate his guts, but I realized yesterday Aizawa-sensei is right. Our petty spat from the past is meaningless, compared to the reason we are here. I've actually thought of this plan because I want to properly capture both of them to excel at this trial."

Izuku then turned to face her once more, "And the key to that success, especially against Bakugo is you. So, are you willing to follow my plan? _It will be quite risky_."

 **!~¡**

 **To be continued..**

 **!~¡**

 _In an Alternate Universe of this Alternate Universe_

"Now that we're all here," the teacher continued, "I came earlier today, because I wanted to introduce your new fellow student, before classes started." Everyone tensed at the reminder of what had happened to Mineta yesterday and looked at his replacement. Interestingly, they couldn't see much of the boy, because he was wearing a red and black hero costume. And were those katanas on his back? Izuku's spider sense immediately began warning him of a catastrophic level of danger.

"Hey everyone, the name's Wade Wilson," the boy waved cheerily. How did the mask even move to show his expression like that? "But you can call me Kid Deadpool, or Kidpool for short! I'm your new transfer student from another dimension, mostly because the author knows every Spider-man needs at least one scene with a Deadpool."

A moment passed before, before..

 _WHAT?!_

 **!~¡**

 **Author's musings:** Ah Kidpool.. it's almost a shame you'll only appear in a bonus gag scene. Almost.

I should make it clear, I'm not planning for characters from Marvel or other comic franchises to appear beyond a cameo in a bonus scene. Now if an established MHA character happened to start carrying a shield around or something similar, that's an entirely different thing.

Finding the right balance between Izuku's personality and Spider-man's personality is more difficult than I expected. I'm still not sure I'm getting it right completely.

Some of the reviews from last chapter gave me a good laugh. Thanks for that. I was also pleasantly surprised to read so many reviews of people who don't think Spider-man is OP.

I've been asked about pairings. All I'll say is this won't be a harem. More importantly, I don't think romance will be a focus of this story and if there is a pairing, the goal is for it to develop organically. We just have to see where it leads us. ~

Thank you for the wonderful support. Now double it! I needs moar, feed me!

 **Ta-ta~**

 **!~¡**


	4. Chapter 4

**!~¡**

 **Spiderling**

 **!~¡**

 **Chapter 4**

 **!~¡**

The morning air was cold and crisp, so much so it made her see her warm breath whenever she exhaled. Ochaco hadn't been in the big city before and she had thought that the air here could never be this fresh. Perhaps it was a reminder of home, a sign of good luck on this important day. To some it may seem silly or optimistic, but Ochaco was just that kind of person.

She reached the entrance of the U.A. academy while doing her best to ignore her nervousness and trepidation with a smile. If you made a point to smile in the face of problems, then they didn't seem as big somehow.

Just as she was entering she noticed a boy with curly dark-green hair standing at the entrance and looking ahead with similar nervousness. Ochaco couldn't help herself and approached him.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked, obviously startling him. She noticed he had rather big green eyes and freckles as well. "Sorry I startled you. Everyone around us looks so calm and collected so it was nice to see someone else who looked as nervous as I felt." She smiled at the boy who still seemed like he was at a loss of words from the surprise. "Well, we should probably go in, good luck!" She waved while going into the grounds. Hopefully he'd feel better.

Ochaco followed the instructions that she'd received when she had applied for U.A. and they led her to a large lecture hall. Finding her seat number, she put her backpack underneath, took her jacket off, folded it and placed it on her lap when she sat. Soon enough the hall was filled up and the pro hero Present Mic appeared to give a presentation.

She listened to the instructions closely making mental notes of all the important bits. There was a brief interruption by a boy with glasses who seemed way too serious, going as far as to scold some other candidate. What was his deal anyway, everyone had their own way of coping with nerves. She hoped she wouldn't end up in a group with him.

It was time for the practical and Ochaco gathered with everyone in her group at the entrance of their designated area. It was so incredibly big, like its own city, but it made sense. U.A. was a place that didn't save any expense in order to produce only the greatest heroes. After today, she'd hopefully be on the road to becoming one of them. She took a deep breath before closing her eyes and touching her palms together.

 _You can do this. You can do this. For Mom and Dad. You can do this._

She kept repeating her mantra until Present Mic's yell of "Start!" snapped her out of it. While confused at first like everyone else, she immediately jumped into action.

Initially there were plenty of bots but there was also plenty of competition. She moved away from the main group and started looking for "villains" in smaller streets. Her battle plan was simple, touch as many as possible at once, wait until they floated high enough and release them to their plummeting doom. She managed to rack up 28 points quickly, but to her dismay there were less and less bots to go around. Ochaco knew she needed to get a lot more if she wanted to have any chance of being accepted. She noticed a 3 pointer fleeing into an alley and made to follow when the ground shook.

She let out a yelp, but managed to keep standing. What was that, an earthquake?! There were panicked screams from all around her and everyone started running away. The ground shook again and one of the closest buildings started falling apart. She made an attempt to run away as well, but lost her footing and fell on the ground. There was a loud crash and she couldn't help out screaming when she felt sharp pain in her legs. Ochaco turned around and saw debris had fallen on them. This was bad, it seemed like at least one of them was definitely broken. She wouldn't be able to finish the exam.

There was an incredibly loud sound of machinery moving and looking up, Ochaco realized that was the least of her concerns. She stared in panic at the approaching monstrosity of the 0 Pointer. No wonder the ground had shook and building had crumbled, that thing was enormous! She whimpered and tried to crawl away, but that only caused her more pain.

There was a sudden loud hissing sound behind her. Ochaco turned around and saw something white shoot into the caterpillar tracks of the 0 pointer. Whatever it was, it seemed to have slowed its progress towards her. She heard a heavy thud next to her and turned around to see the boy she had seen from the gate.

Except it looked like a completely different person. It wasn't just the different clothing (he was wearing dark green pants, red boots, and a red shirt with what looked like webbing embroidery and a black spider in the chest area), but the way he stood and looked at her. There was no trace of nervousness from before.

"Are you okay?" his question made her focus on the situation at hand.

"My legs are stuck, I can't move!" Ochaco replied quickly.

He moved to the debris and lifted it with what looked like almost no effort at all and she felt silly. She could have used her quirk to do that, but the pain had made her panic. Her legs felt a lot better now without the pressure on them anymore, although there was still excruciating pain from one.

"I think my left leg is broken," Ochaco told the boy. As if things couldn't get worse, there was that mechanical whirring sound again. They both looked at the giant bot and saw it had freed itself from the white stuff.

"Could be dangerous to move her, it may cause bigger trauma to the leg," she heard the boy muttering to himself before turning to her. " _I have a plan, but it will be risky._ _If it fails I'll come back and try to carry you away._ "

 **!~¡**

Ochaco blinked and shook away the memory that had come back. It seemed like she had spaced out there. She turned towards Izuku, "You seem to have a habit of coming up with those. Well, since it worked last time, let's give it a go!" she said cheerfully.

"Oh, is that why you spaced out? Well, last time it _almost_ worked out, I'd have been in trouble if you didn't have my back in the final moment," Izuku chuckled in embarrassment. "Okay, here's what I'm thinking."

Meanwhile Tenya and Bakugo had reached the device. Tenya was looking at the room critically. It was a large room, which gave him open space to move around as he pleased. The problem was the windows though, especially the one on the ceiling. He remembered the way Midoriya had jumped around buildings and used his webbing to scale them. Perhaps they should change to a different room? He tried lifting the "device" and it was quite light and easy to move. It was just paper-mâché. While the other rooms were much smaller, which would reduce his manoeuvrability there'd be less windows and by extension less chances for surprise attacks. But smaller quarters wouldn't work well with Bakugo's quirk either. Tenya turned to his teammate to discuss a plan and noticed he was leaving the room.

"Hey, where are you going?" Tenya asked him.

"Stay out of my way," the explosive teen replied menacingly. "This is finally my chance to crush Deku and pay him back for before."

"Didn't you hear Aizawa-sensei yesterday, you should forget about old grudges and focus on the task at hand," Tenya tried to reason with him, but to no avail.

"Shut it! This is part of the exercise too, if I get rid of Deku beforehand, we still win. Now don't interfere or I'll crush you too," Bakugo threatened before exiting the room.

Tenya shook his head. They'd have a bigger chance of success if they presented a united front. But maybe not, given how uncooperative his teammate was, not to mention the unfamiliarity of fighting together. Well, Bakugo's idea could work too, at the very least he should be able to stall them long enough. In that case, Tenya needed to do some changes and prep work himself.

After the 5 minute preparation time finished, All Might's announcement signalled the start of the trial. Izuku and Urakara successfully entered the building through a window. "I'll take lead, like we've discussed. Let's go floor by floor." They checked the first and second floor quickly, finding no signs of Bakugo, Iida or the device. Izuku had started thinking that he was wrong and Bakugo had actually wizened up enough to make a proper plan when his spider sense tingled. He immediately gave a sign to Urakara and she halted where she was. They were just about to reach an intersection and Izuku continued being much more on his guard now.

"What was that?" a boy with spiky red hair and manly costume asked from the observation room. The rest of Class 1-A were standing behind All Might and looking at the monitors along with the teacher. "He gave a sign to Urakara and she stopped!"

"Yes, it seems like Midoriya knows there's an ambush coming, ribbit," a girl with long green hair tied in a bow behind her back said, with her finger on her lips.

"Why's he still walking forward then?" Kaminari asked in confusion. He got his answer soon enough.

The moment Izuku reached the corner of the intersection, he ducked and rolled backwards, narrowly avoiding an explosion. He stood up in a relaxed stance, seemingly unconcerned with who was standing in front.

"So you dodged that. Good, I don't want this to be over too quickly. Not before I get the chance to properly stamp you, Deku!"

"Of course I dodged that Kacchan, you were grinding your teeth so hard I could hear you all the way from outside," Izuku replied.

"Stop calling me that!" Bakugo yelled and swung with his right arm. Izuku couldn't believe his luck, his old bully hadn't changed at all. He quickly grabbed the arm, stopping it mid-swing, spun his body against Bakugo's and before the ash-blond could even process what was happening, launched him hard in the air in Urakara's direction.

Unfortunately, halfway towards the girl hero, Bakugo rallied and used his explosions to flip himself and land on his feet, completely surprising Izuku. _Of course, he's probably learned a lot of uses for his quirk since we last saw each other. So he can navigate in mid-air._ Izuku looked towards Urakara and made another sign. Things had gotten a lot more difficult, but not something they hadn't prepared for. If they couldn't take Bakugo down in 2 minutes, then they'd go with Plan B.

"I knew it," Izuku focused back on the ash-blond who was glaring with hatred at him. "You're really underestimating me, Deku! Stop involving others and face me, you-mmpf!" Izuku fired webbing right at Bakugo's mouth and eyes. "You talk too much, Kacchan," he replied as he and Urakara charged at the "villain" from both sides. Bakugo screamed in annoyance (probably, it was too muffled) and spread his arms apart, pointing a palm at each of them before releasing a big explosion. Izuku managed to dodge by jumping to the ceiling and continued crawling, but Urakara let out a yelp while she was blown away. By the time the spider-boy had reached him, Bakugo had managed to remove the webbing around his eyes and mouth and quickly dodged the kick directed at his face by kneeling and rolling away. He fired another explosion at Midoriya, but the spider-boy managed to gracefully flip to the side. Izuku stood up quickly and threw a punch at Bakugo's head which the ash-blond redirected to the side by grabbing his wrist.

"Time to get rid of that web you love so much," the explosive teen said, making Izuku's eyes widen. He tried to disengage, but not before he felt a burning pain around his left wrist. He kneed Bakugo in the gut causing the other boy to double over and quickly checked it, seeing his web shooter was almost completely destroyed. _Damn it, I don't have another one._ He glared at Bakugo and fired a web at his eyes again.

This time his opponent dodged easily, "That won't work on me again, bastard!" Izuku ignored him and pulled.

Katsuki's eyes widened in shock and he quickly turned around, but it was too late. The web had hit Urakara who had come much closer to the fighting boys. With her being weightless, the explosive teen had no hope of dodging and she collided with him. Damn it, Katsuki had forgotten about the round-faced extra too engaged with Deku. He backhanded her quickly to the ground and directed an explosion at each of his opponents. To his annoyance, Deku not only managed to dodge, but also pull the extra away, since she was still attached to his web. That was the least of his problems however, the backlash from those attacks had been much more than he had anticipated and Katsuki was launched with great force into the wall, before crumbling to the ground in a heap. He was so dazed and confused, he didn't hear the sound of the web-shooter, until it was too late - he was completely pinned to the ground and covered in webs. Even worse, his palms were positioned in a bad way – one was facing the side while the other was underneath him, pressing against his body.

"Success!" Urakara yelled happily, jumping in the air, before suddenly going green and kneeling on the ground.

Izuku quickly came next to her and rubbed her back, "You okay? Did the explosion get you?"

"No, just dizzy.. I was flying really quickly and coupled with the side-effect of my quirk.. I just need a moment," the girl replied dizzily and Izuku remembered that she had a similar episode during the entrance exam.

"What the hell did you do to me, you fucking nerds?!" Bakugo yelled from the ground.

"Newton's Third law, Kacchan," Izuku approached him. "Normally you're not too affected by it, because you can regulate the force of your explosions and your body has built up natural resistance and strength to withstand them. However if your body weight is suddenly changed to nothing without you realizing.. Well, we saw what happened." The spider-boy explained and turned to his teammate, "That was great work Urakara, even if we couldn't finish as quickly as planned."

"We still managed to win, which is a big advantage. And we should have more than enough time now," the girl replied standing up, whilst holding the wall for support.

"HEY! DON'T IGNORE ME, THIS ISN'T-mmpf" Bakugo was silenced mid-rant when Izuku shot another web at his mouth.

"Actually it is. I know it's not the capture tape, but he's incapacitated enough, right sensei?" Izuku said, looking at one of the cameras.

In the observation room All Might's grin widened further. "Indeed he is, young Midoriya."

"You can hear them, All Might-sensei?" Ashido asked surprised.

"That's right, Ashido my girl, I have a communicator as well, in case I need to get in touch with them," All Might explained before pressing on a button to make an announcement. "Katsuki Bakugo has been captured by the Hero team and has been eliminated from the exercise."

Back in the building Izuku couldn't help himself. "Yesss!" he exclaimed thrusting his fist up. He turned to his teammate, "Okay, now for the next stage. I'll look from outside, while you check the rooms that have less windows or none."

"Got it! Is your wrist okay?" Urakara asked completely unconcerned with the bruise that had formed on her face.

"It hurts, but nothing I can't handle," Izuku said and jumped through the closest window while Urakara gave him a nod and quickly ran off, both of them leaving Bakugo webbed to the ground, shaking and alone with his thoughts.

It was Ochaco who found Iida first. Like they had expected, he was indeed in one of the rooms that only had 3 windows. It wasn't as big as the main room, but it still afforded Iida enough space to use his quirk adequately. She wondered what he was doing, the mech-boy seemed to be deep in thought and muttering to himself. She inched closer and finally heard him.

"It seems Bakugo has been captured without delaying them long enough. It's a shame, he had the perfect personality to play the villain.. Perhaps I should get in character too. That's right, I am now quite _Evil_."

Ochaco couldn't help laughing when she heard him. That was too funny, he was so earnest.

"Aha, you have given your location up, Urakara!" Iida yelled, pointing a finger at her. She snorted again and touched her communicator. "Izuku, I found him. He's in the south-west room on the fourth floor."

"Got it, I'll be right there," she got a reply and she came through the door, properly facing Iida.

"I know your quirk, Hero! You can make everything you touch float, so I have cleared the room of all objects to prevent your gimmick! Mwahahahahaha!"

Oh Gods, Izuku had better come quickly or she'd lose it. Speak of the spider, "Okay Urakara, I see you. When I tell you to, go for the weapon, I'll take care of Iida."

She nodded, which was noticed by her opponent, and stepped closer. "Ah, so you're in touch with your fellow Hero! But it matters not, all I need to do is stall for time!"

"Now!" Ochaco heard Izuku and she started running towards Iida. At the right moment she jumped, making herself float over him right towards the weapon.

"What?!" Iida exclaimed, "You can make yourself float too!? No matter, I am still faster!" he said and launched into a run to grab the paper-mâché device. The loud noise of a window shattering grabbed his attention and he turned just in time to see Midoriya coming at him and kicking him in the chest hard enough to make him scream and send him flying into one of the walls. Iida let out a grunt as he slid down to the floor. He hastened to get up, but was quickly pinned to the ground and wall by a plethora of Izuku's webs. Then came All Might's announcement.

"The Hero team has retrieved the weapon and has captured both villains! It is their complete victory!"

"Yes!" "We did it!" Izuku and Urakara both yelled and gave each other a high-five, but in her excitement the girl activated her quirk. Izuku felt himself float and remembered the feeling of weightlessness.

 **!~¡**

" _I have a plan, but it will be risky._ _If it fails I'll come back and try to carry you away._ "

The nice-girl swallowed thickly, but nodded resolutely. Izuku had to finish this as fast as possible and get her some help. He jumped away and shot his web towards the building next to the giant robot. By the time he got to the roof, the machine had come closer and was now reaching with its right hand for the nice-girl.

"Oh no you don't," Izuku said, before he jumped off the roof and fired several webs at the robot's right wrist. He swung under it and used his momentum to land on its chest. Still holding the webs, he ran up until he reached the robot's neck, circled it and started pulling on them. It was incredibly hard at first, his feet made an indent in the robot's head, but he managed to stop the arms' movement and to start pulling it upwards little by little. When the hand reached the head, he tied it around with all the excess webbing and then spent the remainder of his left canister making sure they were properly stuck together.

Izuku's spider sense tingled. "Uh oh," he turned quickly, just in time to catch the left palm of the robot before he got squished like.. well a bug. It was much harder with this hand, considering he was pretty tired, so the spider-boy knew he wouldn't be able to hold it for long. Focusing all his power in his legs, he pushed quickly and barely managed to jump in between the giant fingers before the hand smacked the robot's own face with a resounding clang.

"Perfect", Izuku quickly webbed the second hand together with the first and the head. The robot kept trying to free its hands and Izuku could hear some of the webs starting to rip, which caused him to panic and fire some more. Suddenly, there was a loud noise of tearing metal and the giant machine managed to remove its hands from its body, unfortunately for it, while still holding its head. Immediately explosions started rocking the mechanical behemoth and Izuku knew that was his cue, especially with how his spider sense started to go haywire.

He jumped, did a flip in the air and fired a web.. only for his right web shooter to come empty as well. _Crap, I overdid it!_ _That's what my spider sense tried to warn me off!_ Okay, he was plummeting rather fast but he'd have enough time! He quickly moved the glove up and removed the empty canister. He grabbed a full one from his belt, _Oh God, it's gonna be close,_ and quickly replaced it. He looked frantically for a target, extended a hand, _maybe I'll be okay, spiders fall from high places all the time.. right?_ and felt an impact.

Except it wasn't the impact of him splatting on the ground like a ripe tomato, but an impact of someone's hand hitting his face. He was so surprised, he didn't realize he was floating above the ground for a good 6 seconds. When he did, he looked around and saw the nice-girl was floating next to him on a big metal piece. _It must be her quirk,_ he thought. _I'm feeling so weightless right now._ She joined the tip of her fingers of each hand, before muttering something and both fell to the ground. Izuku lacking in cat-like grace since his quirk wasn't Cat, fell flat on his face.

Groaning he rolled on his back. He could hear the nice-girl.. Was she vomiting? It was probably the mix of excitement and panic. Izuku decided to wait until she finished so instead he stood up slowly. He replaced the empty canister of his other web-shooter, "Good, that should do it for the rest of the exam."

Just as he said that an announcement came from Present Mic, "Time's up!"

Izuku facepalmed. "Oh well.. Maybe 24 points will be enough," he muttered to himself and approached the nice-girl. _And here I thought I'd be saving the girl, but in the end I was the one that needed saving._ "Thanks for the help at the end there, but I hope your leg isn't worse because of that."

"That was amazing!" she exclaimed with a huge smile and Izuku's brain finally remembered he was actually conversing with a female representative of his species, that wasn't his Mom. His face immediately turned crimson. "I can't believe you took out that massive thing! How did you only get 24 points?!"

"W-w-well I uhm.. Got sidetracked?" Izuku winced. "Some of the other contestants needed help and uhm.. Yeah.." he trailed off lamely, but perked up. "But you have an amazing quirk, r-really helped me out there. You'll probably pass."

"I doubt it, only got 28 points myself," the nice-girl said dejectedly and a depressed mood came over them.

"Good job, good job," they heard an elderly voice approach. Izuku turned and saw a little old lady passing candy around. _Wait.. isn't that the Youthful Heroine, Recovery Girl?!_

"Wait here, I'll go ask her to come have a look at you," Izuku said and jumped towards the pro heroine.

 **!~¡**

"Yes, come over and take a seat," Aizawa-sensei waved at him from his desk. After the trial of battle was over, Izuku had gone to Recovery Girl to get his wrist looked at and bandaged and then to Aizawa-sensei, as instructed. As he sat, the teen noticed the teacher was looking at his injury. "Did you hurt yourself while you were swinging around being late, Midoriya?"

"N-no sensei, I wasn't late technically," Izuku cringed at Aizawa's unimpressed look. "This was from the battle trial."

"Oh? I'm planning on reviewing those later today. How'd you get injured?"

"Bakugo," was all Izuku said.

Aizawa-sensei was silent for a moment. "That does explain everything, doesn't it," the teacher shook his head. "Well, I'll watch the videos myself. That's not why you're here. And no," Aizawa-sensei cut Izuku out when he saw the teen open his mouth, "it's not because you were _almost_ late, although I would really prefer it if you started using the door."

Izuku gulped and bowed his head with a muttered apology.

"It's because of this," Aizawa's said, sliding some papers across his desk so Izuku could see them. "Police reports of a mysterious individual, wearing U.A. academy uniform, with green hair, green eyes," by this point Izuku was sweating heavily and doing his best to look at anywhere but Aizawa-sensei or the reports, "freckles, who was shooting white ropes from his wrists. Apparently, he's been helping out people in the mornings, presumably on his way to school. Any of this rings a bell?"

 _Aizawa-sensei is a sadist! He's enjoying this!_ "Is this a good time to mention there's someone who has my exact same abilities, except they're evil?" Izuku tried.

"They are? And they are saving people because..?" the teacher trailed off with a raised eyebrow.

"They hate me and want to get me in trouble?" the teen said with a straight a face as he could muster.

"That shouldn't have sounded like a question. And the fact they look like you?"

"It may seem like me, but it's not actually me. Our appearances are similar and they can change clothes to resemble me even more, but it's obvious when we stand next to each other." At this point, Izuku was all-in and they both knew it, but the teen wouldn't give up. Eraserhead let out a sigh, took out a little bottle and put a drop of its contents in each eye.

"It's not a completely far-fetched defense, considering the superhuman society we currently live in," the teacher said. "But the burden of proof would be on you. Might I suggest perhaps toning down on the heroics until you at least get your license?"

"What was I supposed to do, not help those people?" Izuku asked. "Besides, for a lot of the cases I used my web-shooters and those aren't technically a part of my quirk, so it's not unlicensed misuse of a quirk."

"That.." Aizawa paused and thought about it. "is actually a valid point. But it will only hold as long as you keep things isolated to small incidents. If I were this individual, and this is just me thinking out loud here, I might consider wearing some sort of mask to avoid an easy identification."

Izuku's eyes widened before he quickly stood up and bowed, "Thank you, sensei."

"I'm not saying I'm agreeing or condoning this," Aizawa-sensei quickly said. "But I understand what it's like to have to choose between helping someone or.. Well, disaster. And these small acts of kindness are a good way to build foundation. Now, make sure to go home safely and to let your wrist heal," the teacher dismissed him.

"It's already feeling better, sensei. I guess it wasn't that big of a blast," Izuku shrugged. "I'm probably going to pass by the workshop first.. I need to start working on a replacement web-shooter, since.. Well, you'll see."

Aizawa-sensei's eyes narrowed again. "Power Loader should be at the workshop at this time, most likely working on costumes, so you'll have supervision. However, I think it would be a good idea if there isn't a repeat of any unfortunate accidents. Good day, Midoriya."

 _That wasn't so bad,_ Izuku headed for the workshop. _Aizawa-sensei is a good person. Still sadistic and really scary though._ The class 1-A homeroom had been right, Power Loader was inside the workshop. So was Hatsume, but she seemed to be busy looking at a tablet. After checking in with the teacher, Izuku headed for the webbed corner, sent a message to his Mom that he might be late, and started working. He tended to get really engrossed in whatever project he was researching for or working on, so losing track of time and his surroundings was natural. Really, his spider sense was a Godsend, it would warn him of all sorts of things ranging from an incoming avalanche of trash because he'd made an unsafe dent at the base of a garbage hill while looking for materials, to risking the wrath of his mother when he would be too late in going home or forgetting to call. This time it warned him of the approach of the pink devil, although it seemed that the tingles related to her were getting fainter after each encounter.

"Wow, that explodo guy really did a number on your web-gun," she said after casually picking up the remnants of his old web-shooter.

"It's not called a web-gun, it's called a web.. Wait, how do you know about Bakugo?"

"I saw it on the video recording from the battle trial of course," she replied easily while she was trying to pull a wire from the side only to pull the entire side.

Izuku stared at the girl. "Please tell me you didn't hack the school network to get access to those."

Hatsume gave him a weird look. "Of course not, silly. Higari-sensei gave me access to those videos to look at the way the costumes work, so we can do appropriate modifications and repair. I volunteered to help him."

Izuku let out a sigh of relief.

"I hacked the school network to gain access to your entrance exam video and your quirk appre-" Hatsume was cut out by Izuku's hand covering her mouth. He quickly glanced back at Power Loader, but it seemed like the teacher was busy working on something and hadn't heard her. He turned back to the girl, not noticing her eyes had widened.

"Can you.. not go ahead and announce so loudly that you're breaking school regulations?" he whispered.

Hatsume removed his hand and gave him a wink, "My, aren't you daring." To his amazement when he came back later tonight to review in his mind this particular incident, he did not feel flustered at all. Izuku just kept staring at the girl.

She let out a sigh, "There's nothing in the regulations that says it's forbidden to do it. Besides, I was curious about your quirk and I should know as much as possible if I'm going to be improving your gear."

"That's.. First of all, who said you're going to be working on my gear? I prefer to make things myself."

"And that's remarkable, you have the true spirit of an inventor," Hatsume patted him on the shoulder. "But from seeing this," she showed the destroyed web-shooter "and this," she motioned to the new one he was working on, "I can tell that you're lacking in the basics. For example, your trigger has too many mechanical parts to it and is made out of 3 stages. You can improve it a lot by replacing it with a simpler system – that will increase the response time and eliminate defects."

"I know that – Occam's razor. It applies to everything really," Izuku said annoyed. "The problem is when I used a simpler 1-stage trigger, the response time actually dropped."

"Here, let me have a look," Hatsume said, moved in, and pushed Izuku away. She produced a screwdriver from somewhere and started undoing his hard work. Weirdly, Izuku wasn't as annoyed with this. Instead he found himself intently looking at what the girl was doing. One thought kept bugging him though.

"There's really nothing in the school regulations about gaining unauthorized access to surveillance videos?"

The pink devil stopped what she was doing and turned to him, excitement evident on her face. "What's that? Do you want to watch those videos as well?"

"W-well I.." Izuku stammered. "I mean.. It'd be good to see things from an outside perspective.." he trailed off, since Hatsume had not even waited to hear his rationalization. She practically ran to her work desk, grabbed her tablet, and quickly came back.

"Let's watch them together! I have a lot of question for you," she said happily.

The spider-boy looked surreptitiously at Higari-sensei. It seemed like the teacher was really engrossed in his work. The teen did not notice the pro-hero's smile, since the helmet was in the way.

"Okay," Izuku said finally.

There would be times when Izuku would look back at this moment and wonder how much different their lives would have been if he had convinced Mei that hacking the school surveillance network was a bad thing.

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 **To be continued..**

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 **Author's filtered thoughts:** Apologies dear readers. I really wanted to write a scene where Izuku swung around the giant bot, tying its legs like in that really old movie called Star Wars and then punching it to topple it down. Only problem – the robot doesn't have legs but caterpillar tracks. So I did a scene where he tied its arms instead. On the bright side there's Mt. Lady, so maybe we'll see it one day.

This chapter took a long time to write. There are like 3 versions of it and then literally today I deleted about half of the final version and rewrote it. Let me know what you think gentle readers, was it fun?

I'm changing the posting schedule for this story – from now on it will be every Friday/Saturday, depending on which time zone you're in. It works better for me.

A response to Someguy's review from last chapter, since it's a guest account – notice I said it's hard to balance Izuku and _Spider-Man's_ personalities, not Peter Parker's. Izuku is a shy introvert who feels comfortable when talking about things that interest him and are important to him, like all introverts. Spider-Man is.. well you described him. Peter Parker's personality has no place here.

Speaking of last chapter, it's really annoying when you notice a mistake you've made after you've posted a chapter, and then, even worse, forget what the mistake was. -_-

If you enjoy this story, please consider showing it some love. Do the hat-trick of fav, follow, and review.

 **Ta-ta ~**

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	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note:** Thank you all for the amazing response to this story, for all the support and encouragement! This one had some minor hiccups. Normally, I leave myself a buffer, but I wasn't satisfied with the previous version so I axed it. Not to mention I've also been working on my other story, The Cure for Loneliness. Don't worry though, I'm keeping my update schedule. =D

 **Enjoy !~**

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 **Spiderling**

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 **Chapter 5**

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There had been an extra spring to Izuku's step on his way to lunch today, despite the anxiety caused by the homeroom earlier. He couldn't help being excited. He had officially made a first good (hopefully) friend yesterday. Of course, the whole event brought untold embarrassment to him afterwards, whenever he went back in his memories to review it.

It had been early evening when he and Hatsume ( _Mei_ , he mentally corrected himself) had finished watching the various video footage of Izuku using his quirk, while discussing various things ranging from his agility to the mental mathematics that had become second nature by now, involved in web swinging. Surprisingly enough, Power Loader hadn't minded them staying so long, since he had a project of his own to work on.

It was while they were walking out of the school and towards the train station that Izuku realized he liked spending time with Hatsume. She was incredibly smart and witty, to the point she not only managed to keep up whenever he went on one of his muttering tangents, but could even give her own input on the matter. Of course, there were things that annoyed him, like her complete disregard for personal space or boundaries, how she would touch his things without permission and even go on to dismantle them, and her constant referring to inventing as "making babies". All in all, she was rather weird. But so was Izuku and it seemed like she didn't mind.

"Hatsume," he had found himself suddenly blurting, stopping the girl mid-rant about some flying boots.

"Hmm?" she turned towards him quickly and he noticed how her yellow eyes changed whenever she focused completely on something or someone.

"We're friends, aren't we?" his mouth asked quickly before his brain lost his nerve. His question had made the pink haired girl stop completely and give him a blank look. Izuku panicked. "It's just.. Well, I've never had a real friend before, I mean my last one was Bakugo, and you know how that went, and well we have a lot in common, and you don't think that I'm weird, and we share some interests, and it's fun discussing inventions, and you understand most of the things I'm saying, and we're friends right?" he finished nervously.

Hatsume kept staring at him a moment longer and Izuku felt his face turning red in embarrassment. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Of course we're friends," she finally said, giving him a more subdued smile than normal. "Mind you, I've never had a real one before either, but I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to ask like that." Her usual grin returned and Hatsume once again entered his personal bubble and tried to poke him in the ribs, which he parried deftly.

"Sorry, it's just.. Well, it's cause I.. uhm.." Izuku stammered and scratched his neck.

"It's fine, I get it," the pinkhead waved her hand. "You're not good with social interactions."

"I don't want to hear that from you!" Izuku yelled in embarrassment, which only caused the girl to laugh.

They had exchanged numbers afterwards, agreed to meet at lunch the next day, and went on their ways. Afterwards Izuku realized that whole episode from his side had really been weird. But after the disastrous "friendship" with Bakugo, Izuku wanted things to be clear and spelled out. He'd rather be weird than go through something like that again. Besides, Mei didn't seem to mind.

So here he was, having lunch with his _friend_ , Mei. Someone who would share their thoughts or give a different point of view on matters. Someone he could count on for support and encouragement, whenever he needed it.

"You know, you haven't really struck me as the leadership type," Mei said while absentmindedly stabbing some pasta with a screwdriver.

Izuku sighed and gave her a flat look. "Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence," he snatched the screwdriver and replaced it with a fork. "I could actually say the same about you."

"Being class president for Support is different than Heroics," Mei wasn't even fazed at the switch and carried on eating her food. "Mmm, delicious. In Support, I'll be in charge of ordering and managing equipment and materials. I'll also be monitoring each of my classmates' usage in case someone is being wasteful. But the best part: I can give myself benefits without anyone realizing." She let out a wicked grin at the last part.

"I'm pretty sure that's not how it's supposed to work and there are rules against that," Izuku shook his head. "And there is still some leadership aspect of it."

"Eh, I'm sure there are loopholes I can exploit," Mei shrugged unconcerned. "And I agree, but that's fine too. I consider this training for one day having my own company and employees," she smiled broadly. "Hey, with both of us being our respective class presidents, it'd probably be even easier to find those loopholes!"

"Ugh, I dont know if I'll even keep the post! To be class president one needs to be decisive, assertive, good with thinking on their feet, and last but not least, to be able to inspire others. I'm not sure if I'm filling in any of these criteria," Izuku said in exasperation.

"Then why did you put your name forward and vote for yourself?"

"I didn't. I voted for Iida, he seemed perfect for the job, he even has the look of it down," the spider-teen shook his head.

"So you were able to get 3 votes despite not even voting for yourself?" Mei whistled. "It seems to me you've managed to inspire at least 3 people then. Look, I know it may not be easy, but if you don't gi-" the girl was interrupted by the loud sound of alarm.

"There has been a level 3 security breach," a female voice was heard over the speakers. "All students, please evacuate outside promptly."

It only took 3 seconds for the relatively calm lunch hall to descend into chaos, with everyone jumping from their seats and rushing towards the exit. Izuku jumped as well, but not before grabbing Mei, and webbed to the ceiling. He observed the literal stampede of students that was making its way towards the large doors.

"Eugh," he heard from the girl, "I think I'm gonna be sick. That was really fast. And disorienting."

"S-sorry.. My spider sense went nuts," Izuku stammered. "What's a level 3 security breach?"

"Either someone is trespassing on school grounds or an experiment has managed to gain sentience, escape, and is wreaking havoc in the school," the girl replied dazedly.

 _Well, nothing we can do if it's the second one,_ Izuku thought quickly and looked towards the windows. _Maybe I should break some, we are on the ground floor after all. No, people might get hurt on the glass._ That's when he noticed there was a crowd of people on the school grounds.

"Oh.. I think we found our trespassers," he said, making Mei turn towards the window as well and using her quirk to zoom in on them.

"Those are reporters.. The ones from this morning!" she exclaimed confused. "How did they manage to get in?"

"It doesn't matter, we need to let everyone know so they stop panicking," Izuku said, looking down at the other students. There was so much pushing and shoving in the panicked crowd that it was only a matter of time until someone got seriously injured.. or worse. He secured Mei with a web to the ceiling, "This is the time, in case you have some crazy invention with you that can help."

"All my babies are in the workshop or at home," the girl shook her head before slapping a hand over her mouth. Izuku hoped she wouldn't lose it.

"All right, I'll just try to grab everyone's attention," he put on his second glove and shot towards the exit of the lunch hall. "Try not to stutter!" Izuku heard Mei yell "encouragingly" behind him and rolled his eyes _. Yeah, this friendship thing is really paying off._

"Seems to me those 3 people were right after all," Mei told him later that day. By now it had become a habit for the two of them to meet at the workshop after school, although this time Izuku was sitting at Mei's corner. His friend was working on one of her latest babies for some competition. She had even asked him to be a test subject at some point. "In case you don't realize it, you pretty much filled the checkboxes on all the requirements you yourself listed for being class president. Hand me number 9."

Izuku blushed and used searching for the wrench as an excuse to look away. He gave her the tool and thought back to what had happened at lunch. He still wasn't sure what had come over him, but he had managed to yell at everyone to calm down and amazingly enough they had listened. After the whole affair was concluded, he had gotten praise from his classmates before the rest of the roles for class council had been filled. Since Iida and Yaoyorozu had gotten an equal amount of votes, it had fallen onto him to pick who would be VP. It was a no brainer, he had voted for Iida himself after all and besides, the girl had rubbed him the wrong way the previous day while the class had been discussing the Trial of Battle.

The spider teen came back to himself and looked towards Mei again. His friend seemed to have realized he was in his own world and was just focusing on her project. It was actually quite an interesting idea - she was trying to create adjustable weights.

"It's only in moments like those that I can perform in such a way," Izuku admitted. "Most of the time.. Well.. I just wish I could wear my mask constantly."

"Yeah, it's quite the amazing transformation," the girl returned the number 9 and asked for the cross screwdriver. "Oh I got an idea earlier! One word: web-grenade!"

"Web grenade?" Izuku asked doubtfully. "Those are two words."

For the first time since he'd met Mei, the girl actually blushed. "There's a dash in between!"

 **!~¡**

The next day turned out to be pretty special for Izuku's high school life. For starters, he didn't have to rush to school and had actually arrived with about 20 minutes to spare. It was actually all thanks to his idol. Izuku had been about to intervene and fire a web at the runaway tire when All Might appeared out of nowhere, bursting with energy and catching it between two fingers. After that the spider-teen decided to just head to school - if All Might was patrolling around, he doubted the number 1 hero would leave any incidents for him.

Of course he still entered the classroom normally. Just because he wasn't rushing didn't mean he had to use the door. Besides Aizawa-sensei wasn't there to see him, so all was good. High school was so much better than what he'd expected or at least so much better than middle school had been. He was surrounded by like-minded aspiring heroes, he had managed to make a true friend and was even cultivating good relationships with his classmates. Iida had seemed moved yesterday, after Izuku had chosen him for VP and also told him that he had gotten the spider-boy's vote. Ochaco was also incredibly friendly and talkative, which was good since Izuku still had a hard time saying longer than 5 word sentences in normal situations. He had also exchanged numbers with the two of them and much to his surprise with Kirishima and Kaminari as well.

The latter two boys had been swallowed up in the stampede of yesterday's panic attack and had been rather impressed with how Izuku had stepped up to the plate. The green haired teen was pretty sure no one had ever described him as manly in his life before, but the red spiky haired and feral looking Kirishima had made sure to throw the adjective at him at least once in every following interaction. Speaking of..

"Oh Midoriya, you're not late!" Kirishima said surprised as Izuku was descending upside down to his desk via a web.

"I.. I never am!" the spider-teen replied flustered and flipped, finally landing on the chair without falling. Another milestone. "I just get sidetracked, alright?"

"Chill dude, I'm only joshing you," Kirishima laughed. "So, want to meet up this weekend and have a fight?"

"Wha..What?!" Izuku asked startled.

"Like a spar, bro! Your quirk is super manly and you have enhanced strength and everything. My quirk also increases my strength, although it really excels in durability. I just want to see how it stacks up against yours," Kirishima grinned challengingly.

Izuku felt a shiver and it wasn't one of fear. Honestly, since he had witnessed the other fights during the Trial of Battle, there was a growing feeling in him, a curiosity that wanted to be sated. The spider-teen couldn't help but wonder how would he stack up against some of his classmates (with the exception of Bakugo, that was a can of wasps he was _not_ going to open). He wasn't keen on fighting by nature, but it would definitely be a learning opportunity.

"That doesn't sound bad," Izuku replied with a smile of his own. "I even know a place where we can escape prying eyes, since I doubt two aspiring heroes fighting will go well with the school."

"It's sparring, sparring!" Kirishima corrected him and his grin widened, showing all of his sharp teeth. "Sounds good, you can text me the details later and then we can decide on a time."

"Everyone stand up and greet the teacher!" Iida yelled, making both boys turn towards the vice-president.

Kirishima shook his head, before heading for his desk, "If you're not careful Midoriya, Iida will steal more and more of your duties."

 _Maybe Kirishima is right,_ Izuku thought later as they were preparing to board the bus for the next Foundational Hero Trial - Rescue. Iida was instructing everyone to line up so they could properly and in an orderly fashion board the bus. Then again, the spider-teen didn't really have an issue with Iida doing things like this. The bespeckled boy seemed to enjoy it after all and was pretty suited for it.

"Huh.. You're wearing a different costume, Midoriya?" Kirishima asked him from behind.

"Yeah," Izuku turned around. "One of the sleeves of the other one got pretty tattered after Bakugo's attack, so the whole jumpsuit needs to be replaced. This is one of the previous versions, it's actually made of two parts." It also had a different colour scheme, the pants, shirt and mask were completely dark green, while only the gloves and boots retained their red colour. In addition, instead of the usual web, there were now two large white spiders, one on his chest sitting on a smaller web and one on his back.

"Wow, you make your own costumes?! And you have multiple versions too?"

"Well, I uh.. I've been messing around with costume ideas since I first got my quirk," Izuku rubbed his neck and looked away.

"Dude, that's pretty manly! It's like heroics is in your whole being!"

Izuku got even more embarrassed, yet couldn't help a feeling growing in his chest. Not many people had told him that and actually being acknowledged by a peer like this made him really happy.

In the end it turned out there was no need for the whole lining up thing. Izuku ended up sitting between Sato and Asui, who suddenly spoke up.

"I say whatever comes to mind," the girl with long straight green hair somehow tied in a bow said and turned to him, "Midoriya-chan.."

Of course, the same thing as always happened to Izuku whenever a beautiful girl spoke to him - his brain overheated and his mouth took the reins. "Oh, you have the same issue like me. Is that a product of your quirk too?"

"No, it's just how I am," Asui's monotone voice did not betray her surprise. "But I guess it's another thing we share in common. Our quirks are really similar."

"You know, that reminds me of a species of tarantula spiders common to the jungles of South America, _Xenesthis immanis,_ that actually keep a species of frogs, _Chiasmocleis ventrimaculata,_ as pets."

In the silence that followed, Izuku's brain finally caught up with what he had just said. The teen turned crimson and hid his face behind his elbows, expecting laughter.

"That's interesting information," Asui said as if she was completely unfazed and handed him a straw. "Are you saying you want to partner with me in this trial?"

"Yes!" Izuku took it like the drowning man he was. "That's exactly what I meant, Asui-san!"

"Call me Tsuyu-chan, Midoriya-chan."

 _Oh what the hell, I'm already deep in it anyway, more embarrassment won't change anything at this point._ "Only if you call me Izuku," the spider-teen replied before he lost his nerve. He noticed Kirishima giving him a thumbs up from behind Tsuyu and his cheeks somehow turned even redder. The girl agreed and the conversation moved to discussing everyone's quirks. They reached their destination without any other social disasters, although it was mostly because Izuku spent the entirety of the rest of the bus ride completely in silence and staring directly ahead through a window. Not even the prospect of teasing Bakugo snapped him out of his stupor.

Meeting the Space Hero 13 on the other hand did. Disaster relief and rescue work was after all one of the things Izuku had considered doing when he became a hero one day. Naturally, he had done his due diligence and researched the different pro heroes that worked in that particular field and 13 was one of the very top. Being able to learn directly from him was an incredible opportunity.

"Greetings everyone! I have been expecting you!" the pro-hero waved. "Welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Join! It is an area I have specifically designed to contain all sorts of natural and man-made disasters, ranging between a shipwreck, a landslide, an inferno, a hurricane and many others."

Aizawa-sensei approached his colleague, "Hey 13.. Where is All Might, he was supposed to meet us here?" The Space hero approached him as well and some silent words were exchanged before Eraserhead shook his head. "How reckless. Well, it's not like we didn't prepare for that."

Izuku listened raptly to the rescue hero's lecture about the dangers of improper use of quirks when his spider sense suddenly started issuing warnings. Something dangerous was about to happen. He was so dazed from the feeling that he hadn't realized he was moving until Aizawa-sensei put a hand on his shoulder.

"Midoriya? What's wrong?"

"Sensei.." Izuku looked around and noticed everyone was staring at him. He had stopped at the top of the stairs leading down to the main plaza. That's exactly where he looked back again. "Something bad is about to happen."

Aizawa followed his gaze and that's when electricity started going through the lighting of the huge dome, shorting it out. A dark black and purple portal appeared in front of the fountain of the plaza from where terrifying and deranged looking people started to come out of. Aizawa quickly pushed Izuku back, while the teen brought his mask over his face. "Everyone, gather together!"

The spider boy flipped backwards and landed in his usual crouch in front of his fellow classmates. "What's going on?" Kirishima asked trying to get a better look at all the weirdos. "Is this like the entrance exam where the trial has already started?"

"No.." Izuku replied uneasily. "I think those are actual villains."

"Nobody move," Eraserhead instructed while putting his goggles on. "It seems like the attack from yesterday may be linked to this."

"But Sensei, what about the school sensors?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"We have them, but.." 13 said with uncertainty.

Todoroki stepped forward. "The question is if this is the only part of the school they are attacking or if it's a much bigger infiltration. If it's the former, considering the alarms haven't activated, then most likely they have someone whose quirk can counteract the sensors. This is a planned attack on a class of students while isolated and away from the main campus. It seems they've done their homework and most likely have a specific goal in mind."

"13, start the evacuation and contact the school," Eraserhead told his colleague. "Kaminari you try doing the same with your quirk." The pro hero then stepped to the edge of the stairs.

"Wait, Sensei!" Izuku yelled and stepped forward. "You can't fight them all by yourself, there's too many of them, even if you erase their quirks! Let me come help you, I can cover your back with my webs!"

"No," Aizawa-sensei said calmly and gave him a brief look. "Help them, Class President."

The Pro hero then jumped down the stairs and charged against the villains. The students watched in stunned silence before Izuku rallied. "Everyone, we have to evacuate! Run towards the exit, we have to trust in Sensei!" His classmates didn't need to be told twice and everyone started running towards the large doors. However, halfway on the way they were met with the same black and violet portal from before which this time had a pair of yellow eyes to accompany it.

"I'm sorry heroes. I'm afraid I can't allow you to go anywhere. We from the Villain Alliance have taken the liberty to infiltrate this Academy with the sole purpose of killing the Symbol of Peace, All Might. Yet he's not here, even though the schedule said he would be. I wonder what happened?" The villain didn't get to say much else, since Bakugo and Kirishima chose that moment to attack him.

 _He's unharmed._ Izuku observed after the dust settled. _So he can not only warp to any location he pleases, but he can also warp attacks away as well._ His spider sense began tingling again, their opponent was about to do something.

"How dangerous," the misty villain said. "You're all future heroes after all, so I guess it's to be expected. However, my other role is to split you all apart to be tortured and killed." Black tendrils spread from his body and engulfed the group of students.

Izuku reacted quickly, grabbing his nearest classmate, which happened to be Tsuyu and jumped out of the black mist. "Everyone, hold onto each other, he's trying to split us! Tsuyu, Sero, try to grab people with your quirks," he yelled and shot a web with his free hand back into the mist. He felt it impact someone and quickly pulled before landing on the ground some ways away, followed closely by the surprised Kirishima. He noticed Tsuyu's tongue also went into the purple-blackness to pull out Todoroki. When the black dome finally dissipated, he could see that most of his classmates were still here. It seemed like Iida had managed to pull Sato and Urakara away, while Shoji had covered Ashido and Sero. Unfortunately, it looked like the rest of Class 1 A had been split apart.

"Status report, is everyone okay? Are they still on the grounds?" Izuku asked, wishing they had the radios from the Trial of Battle. Then again, if there was a villain who could interfere with radio waves, then they wouldn't have been that good.

"We're scattered and in disarray, but it seems everyone is still within the park limits," Shoji answered him from one of his mouth tentacles.

"That was quick thinking, Midoriya. It seems like you and Asui have managed to keep some students from being warped away," 13 said, making a stand between the villain and the remaining students. "I have another task for you, Class President. I need you to go back to the school as fast as possible and notify the faculty of what is happening here."

"I'm sorry Sensei, but I think I should remain," Izuku replied while giving a resolute look, which would remain unseen because of his mask. "While I can traverse great distances quickly, I need appropriate high buildings to use for web swinging, which there were almost none of on the way here. I think Iida would be more suited for this task, since he is the fastest out of all of us on the ground."

"What?! You expect me to leave and abandon you all!? As the Vice President I need to stay and help as much as possible!"

"Iida, we have no way to communicate with the school and we've been split and scattered. If we don't receive reinforcements things will get even worse for us." Izuku turned to look straight at his comrade. "Right now the best way you can support everyone is by going back and getting help. Can we count on you, Vice President?"

"My my, I can't believe you're letting me hear your plans like that," the villain snapped everyone's attention back to him.

"That's because it won't matter if you hear them!" 13 said and one of his fingers opened up to create a vortex. Izuku looked back to the two adults and noticed a black portal appearing behind the teacher. He shot a web at the teacher's back, but knew he'd be too late.

Or maybe not. A wall of ice appeared between 13 and the portal, shielding the teacher long enough for Izuku to pull him away. "That was close," the pro hero said. "Thank you students, I'll be more careful in the future. Vice President, you should really go."

After seeing the teacher almost get defeated easily, Iida did as he was told and immediately rushed for the exit. A black portal appeared in front of him, but a spear of ice shot from the ground blocking it, so Iida just kept running.

"Those plates on his body.. They seem solid enough," Izuku muttered, catching Kirishima and Tsuyu's attention. The green haired boy shot a pair of webs and at the plates pulled them hard, while his two classmates each directed a punch and a kick respectively at the villain, who was caught off guard and let out a grunt. Todoroki didn't miss the opportunity to encase the plates and the black mist around them in ice immediately afterwards. Izuku quickly looked up and saw there was no more purple blackness chasing Iida and the Vice President successfully managed to escape.

"Good work everyone," 13 said. "That was some amazing teamwork you all displayed. Don't let your guards down though, he may still have some tricks up his sleeve." Everyone turned to the villain whose.. body? was frozen to the ground. The pro hero continued, "Now we best follow Iida's example and evacuate immediately."

"But sensei, what about the others and Aizawa-sensei?" Urakara asked.

Before the pro hero could respond, Izuku felt his spider sense scream. "WATCH OUT" he yelled but it was too late. A huge black _thing_ appeared out of nowhere and punched 13 hard enough to send the teacher flying into the nearest wall. To their horror, the pro hero did not move or even twitch anymore.

Izuku looked at the new attacker. First of all it was huge, as tall as All Might and with the same incredible muscle definition. No doubt it had some sort of strength or physical enhancement quirk. But its head was all weird, it had some sort of beak with teeth for a mouth, its brain was exposed and its eyes were directly attached to it.

"What is that?!" Urakara yelled in shock.

"It's going to try and free its portal buddy!" Kirishima said and hardened his entire body before standing between the frozen villain and the new arrival.

"Forget about him, we have to escape now! Everyone grab 13 and evacuate, I'll distract this thing," Izuku yelled and shot a web into the monsters eyes. To his shock and disgust, the thing just pulled the web, seemingly unconcerned it also pulled out its eyes. The spider boy stared dumbly as they just regrew effortlessly. His spider sense tingled again and Izuku dodged the fist that was powerful enough to make a small crater in the ground right where he had been a second ago.

"GO, NOW!" his second yell finally made everyone burst into action, however not in a way he had intended. Todoroki froze the ground and the monster's lower body with incredible speed, while Kirishima punched it in the legs, shattering them. Meanwhile Tsuyu shot her tongue towards 13 and pulled him right into Shoji's arms who held the bulky hero effortlessly. The two of them started running along with the rest of the students afterwards.

Izuku stopped paying attention to his classmates, since it seemed like they'd be able to escape safely. His task now was the monster who was quickly regenerating its legs. "I think I told you guys to escape as well."

"Yes, it was very manly, Class Prez," Kirishima said hardening his arms and body. To Izuku it looked like he had blades instead of fingers. "But I think I'll stick around to give you a hand."

"That's right, we have a bigger chance of delaying it together." Todoroki attempted to freeze the villain again, but this time the monster dodged with incredible speed and threw a punch at the scarred boy. Kirishima managed to intercept it, however his durability and strength weren't enough to withstand that thing's raw power and both of them were sent flying. The beast wasted no time in going to its fellow villain and freeing him from the ice. The black mist guy rose from the ground effortlessly.

"Thank you, Nomu. I won't let them surprise me again."

 _Alright, alright I get it!_ Izuku told his spider sense with annoyance. He didn't need it to realize he was in deep. He heard footsteps coming up the stairs and turned to see some guy wearing black with a lot of severed hands holding different parts of his body. Worse yet, he was accompanied by quite a few villains. _Aizawa-sensei!_ Izuku jumped to the nearest pillar and looked down in the plaza with horror. The pro hero was lying on the ground, his head in a small crater and blood pooling around it. This was bad, he had to save him.

"What happened Kurogiri? Weren't you supposed to take down 13 and separate the golden eggs?" The voice came from the severed hands guy. Figures, why was the most deranged looking guy the one in charge?

"They caught me off guard and one of them managed to escape, Shigaraki Tomura," the warp villain who was apparently named Kurogiri replied.

"Damn.. Damn.." the hands guy, Shigaraki(?), started shaking. "It's game over.. It's game over now! My plan to kill All Might has failed! He's not here!" _Great, he's also really unstable,_ Izuku thought. "It seems like we should hop back.. But first, let's hurt his pride a bit and kill some students." The deranged man looked at Izuku in particular when he said that.

"Now would be a good time for reinforcements," Izuku muttered. It seemed the villains had heard him, since everyone took a moment to look around, especially at the big entrance doors. To the teenager's relief, it looked like his classmates had managed to escape with 13.

 _Great, now I have to think of a way to do the same with Aizawa-sensei, Todoroki, and Kirishima. Wait what about the rest?_ "Nomu, squash that annoying little spider," the Shigaraki guy said. _Shut up, shut up, I know!_ the freckled boy thought.

Izuku jumped from the pillar a second before it was completely wrecked by the Nomu thing. It was incredibly fast, by the time Izuku landed in front of one of the other remaining villains, it was already upon him. The spider teen flipped to his side in the nick of time and the punch meant to turn him into a smear hit the villain and sent her flying. _Good, it's not very smart, I can use this._

He repeated that same tactic 2 more times, but got a nasty surprise on the third one - when he dodged, the deranged man was waiting for him and unfortunately his spider sense hadn't been much help considering it had been screaming constantly since the Nomu started chasing him.

He wasn't sure what the enemy's quirk was, but was preparing for the worst when he felt the pull. He was quickly deposited next to Tsuyu and Todoroki who immediately put an ice wall up between them and the villains, taking care to once again freeze the Nomu. Izuku noticed Kirishima was there as well, holding an unconscious Aizawa-sensei over one shoulder.

"Good job holding them off for so long, Izuku-chan," the frog girl told him.

"No, I was a goner there, thanks for having my back, Tsuyu-chan," Izuku said, mentally adding another tally to the times he's been saved by pretty girls by now.

"You did a pretty manly job at disabling most of the remaining villains using that thing," Kirishima grinned. "But damn did it pack one hell of a punch, I used my best hardening and it still hurts like hell." Izuku realized then the redhead wasn't grinning, but grimacing.

"Unfortunately, it seems like they'll be getting reinforcements," Todoroki motioned to the plaza behind them where more villains were gathering. "I'm thinking they're probably from the other areas, considering they were planning to split us. But since it didn't go according to their plan, those villains must have decided to come here."

"Did the others escape?" Izuku directed that at Tsuyu and the frog girl nodded.

"Yes, while you three were fighting the Nomu.. I was worried and decided to check up on you," she said with some.. hesitation? It was hard to tell with her, but maybe she was worried Izuku would be mad she hadn't listened to him?

"That's good to hear," he said instead. "So to summarize, we are surrounded by villains, we don't know how the rest of our classmates are doing, and the 3 likely most powerful enemies are standing between us and our only escape. On top of that, Kirishima is wounded, we have to carry an unconscious Aizawa-sensei as well, and we have no idea when reinforcements are coming."

"On the bright side, they're being so nice to give us so much time to regroup and plan," Kirishima offered.

"I think it's more because this time I froze the thing completely and it's having difficulty escaping, unlike the previous times when I froze only parts of it, which it could regenerate easily after ripping itself apart. Probably the other two are trying to free it," Todoroki said.

"Any idea what the hand guy's quirk is?" Izuku asked, but only got shakes as a response. "Okay, our priority is reaching the gate and getting Aizawa-sensei medical attention. Todoroki and I are most suited for distracting and delaying the villains, while you two are good with mobility and endurance, which is needed to carry him to safety. Not to mention, Kirishima needs help as well."

"If I can't handle this much, then I'm not a real man," the spiky haired boy said immediately.

"What happens after we get to the exit?" Tsuyu asked with her finger over her mouth.

"We cover your escape and delay the villains to prevent them from going to the other areas. Hopefully the teachers will arrive by then."

Todoroki jumped suddenly and froze the stairs, making the villains that were traversing them slip and slide to the bottom. "We're running out of time, better get going now." No sooner had he said that and a huge impact was heard from the ice wall.

 _It seems like the Nomu is free._ Izuku thought. "Alright, let's go!" He shot a web to the top of the wall and pulled himself up. He saw Shigaraki was near where the Nomu had been frozen with the Kurogiri guy behind him. The Nomu was punching the wall, causing huge chunks of ice to fly away, but Izuku stood his ground despite the shaking. He fired a web straight at the thing's eyes and blinded it once more. It wasn't a useless gesture, after all it took about 10 seconds for the Nomu to rip the web away and to wait for the eyes to regrow.

He saw his 3 classmates run towards the exit from the side, which caught the Nomu's attention the moment it could see again. Izuku fired a web at its hands this time and the thing pulled him hard, something the freckled boy had been counting on. He used his momentum on top of removing any limiters to his strength and planted a solid kick into the monster's head.

To his shock, the Nomu was completely unfazed and simply reached for his legs. _What the.. It should have felt that!_ Izuku thought furiously as he dodged and fired another web at the thing's eyes. This time it blocked with its forearm, which gave Izuku enough time to web swing away. What kind of quirk did that thing have?! Regeneration and enhanced fitness he could understand, they could be linked together. But being able to absorb physical strikes on top?! _Wait, is this how they plan on defeating All Might?_

Instead of chasing him, the Nomu charged towards the other 3 teens and the unconscious teacher. However, it seemed Todoroki had expected that and a spike of ice appeared in the creature's path, which made it impale itself in the chest. Shigaraki charged as well, but Izuku managed to fire a web at the villain's left ankle and the following pull made the deranged man fall flat on his face. The green head quickly landed behind his classmates and they all managed to reach the doors unimpeded.

 _I spoke too soon,_ Izuku's eyes widened at the portal that had appeared behind them, from whence the Nomu appeared and directed an incredibly fast punch towards Kirishima. Several things happened at once - Izuku fired a web at the thing's hand and tried to pull it back only to get pulled himself; Kirishima dropped Aizawa-sensei, hardened his forearms and chest, made a cross shaped guard in front of him, and was launched through the exit gates despite all of that, right into a large man who caught him easily; Tsuyu successfully managed to catch the teacher with her tongue and pull him and herself away from the creature; a huge fist garbed in a golden yellow sleeve punched the Nomu in the face hard enough to push it away.

"You have made me incredibly proud, students, to have managed to withstand this long against the villains while helping your classmates escape and saving your teacher. But you can relax now. Why?" All Might ripped his tie away. "Because I AM HERE!"

 **!~¡**

Izuku was sitting in a chair and staring blankly at who would hopefully be another good friend, after the events of today. Kirishima was sleeping peacefully in an infirmary bed, Recovery girl had explained that her power didn't magically heal wounds but accelerated the body's own healing process, which normally took out a lot of energy from a person. The red haired boy would make a full recovery, he had only suffered fractures in his right arm and two of his ribs. Yet, despite Recovery Girl's reassurances, Izuku had insisted he wanted to stay until his classmate woke up. Iida and Tsuyu had offered to stay as well, but the green haired teen had told them to go home and rest. The Vice President had agreed easily enough (after a 20 minute debate on the pointlessness of all of them staying there), but it had taken more persuasion for the frog girl. She had finally acquiesced after a long worried look coupled with a promise to text her once Kirishima woke up. Izuku was so deep in thought, he almost had a heart attack when the infirmary doors opened and Mei stormed in. "I heard what happened, are you okay?!" the pink haired girl rushed towards him quickly.

"Y-yeah.." he replied shakily and flinched when he felt Mei's hands on his shoulders. The girl stared at him, before pulling him in a hug. "I was so worried.. When I heard you were here I thought.. I thought you were hurt."

It took a full 5 minutes for the tension to leave Izuku's body so he could return the hug. He rested his chin on his friend's shoulder and felt his whole body shake. "N-no, no, I'm.. I'm good. We were lucky, only Kirishima was the most injured.. Well, excluding the teachers."

"I hate to break the touching moment, but you two are really loud," speak of the devil. Izuku and Mei immediately broke the embrace and turned towards the lying boy.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Izuku asked worriedly.

"Thirsty," Kirishima croaked. "What happened, I feel like I got hit by a train."

"It wasn't a train," Izuku replied while he went to get some water. When he came back, Mei had brought another chair and was sitting in it while rummaging through her backpack. The freckled boy handed the cup which Kirishima took and emptied greedily. "Do you feel pain anywhere, want me to call Recovery Girl?"

"No, I feel fine, just tired.. Wait, she's not in the infirmary?" Kirishima asked confused.

"She's attending to the teachers," Izuku explained and sat down.

"How are they? And what happened, how did we escape?"

"They are heavily wounded.. I haven't heard much honestly," Izuku replied hollowly. "And as for what happened, All Might arrived."

"You gotta give me more details than that, man," Kirishima grinned at him.

"Wanna watch?" Mei asked suddenly, showing her tablet.

"Mei! Did you hack the school system again?!" Izuku asked exasperated. "And how is there footage even, I thought the camera feeds were interrupted?"

"Oh the cameras still kept recording, even though they were disconnected from the school network. When the attack was repelled and they regained network access, they automatically uploaded their footage to the cloud server, which I conveniently have access to," the girl explained happily.

"I do want to see it," Kirishima spoke from the bed, after lifting himself in a sitting position. "There are some moments I'm missing, like when that bastard punched me the first time." Both he and Mei gave him an expectant look and after frowning for a bit, Izuku made a show of sighing in exasperation. "Oh fine, let me just message Tsuyu-chan that you're okay."

Mei lifted a brow and grinned a grin that woke the freckled boy's spider sense up. "Tsuyu-chan?" Izuku blushed and just focused on his phone and the text he was going to write. After he was done, Mei sat in between the two boys and started the footage. They decided to watch their battles first and as usual it was quite bizarre for Izuku to watch himself in action from an outside view. The pink haired girl paused the videos a couple of time since Kirishima had a question or two, which Izuku answered. And then came All Might's part.

Seeing the fight once again, with the benefit of slow motion this time, was incredible. The number 1 hero had danced circles around the Nomu while effortlessly exchanging blows. He had at one point grabbed the thing and performed an effortless German suplex. But..

"That's so dirty! Those guys aren't manly at all!" Kirishima exclaimed when he saw Kurogiri had used his quirk to warp the Nomu for a sneak attack underneath All Might. To the red haired boy's delight, that was when Izuku and Todoroki had interfered and helped the pro hero escape.

What followed was the most incredible exchange of raw strength any of them had ever seen with the big finisher of the Nomu being sent flying through the USJ's dome. The other teachers had arrived in that moment and the villains had been forced to run with their tails between their legs.

"That was incredible," Kirishima let out a large breath and leaned back. "Makes you realize what a long way we still have to go."

"I'm definitely rewatching this," Mei seemed to agree looking straight ahead of her. "And making copies. And sharing it with friends. Wait, I already just did that."

"Wait! What's that! Pause it!" Izuku had been the only one that kept watching the video. After the fight, Cementos had erected a wall between the students and All Might. The teacher had told them to hurry up, get checked, and leave the cleanup to the pros. The spider-teen had thought it was a bit weird at the time, but the adrenaline slowly draining out of his system along with the realization that they had all somehow managed to survive, had forced him to agree.

Now, the three teens were looking with confusion at All Might. Or what should have been All Might. Instead, there was a skeletal man, wearing All Might's golden striped suit, with blood dripping from his mouth down his chin, and barely standing where All Might should have been standing in victory.

 **!~¡**

 **To be continued..**

 ** **!~¡****

 _From an Alternate Universe of this Alternate Universe:_

Aizawa-sensei approached his colleague, "Hey 13.. Where is All Might, he was supposed to meet us here?" The Space hero approached him and some silent words were exchanged before Eraserhead shook his head. "How reckless. Well, it's not like we didn't prepare for that."

13 seemed to agree before he motioned towards a burly feral looking man standing to the side. "Everyone, since All Might is unavailable, we have prepared a special substitute teacher. Here, all the way from the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters in New York is our newest exchange teacher, the Wolverine."

"But you kids can call me Rogan-sensei," the man said in perfect Japanese, surprising everyone. Izuku was frowning at the new teacher. He had a feeling he should know that name and this man. He felt someone lean on his shoulder and turned towards Kidpool.

"Oh man, I bet if any villains happened to execute a surprise attack on us right now, they'll be in for quite the nasty surprise."

 **!~¡**

 **Author's scribbles:** Wow, this one is much longer than normal. Usually I try not to exceed 6000 words, but a lot of important things had to happen in this chapter. I actually separated 2 scenes and left them for the next chapter, which will show some different POVs.

I hope you all enjoyed the fight. I rewrote it 3 times and this final version feels really hectic and tense to me. Reading it myself, it feels like everything just happens so quickly! I'm also hoping I managed to showcase Izuku's awkwardness appropriately. I used myself as the template when I was his age. XD

That was also the last cameo I had planned. So there won't be anymore bonus scenes from an Alternate Universe, unless something pops up in my mind. =D

I would love to hear your thoughts, gentle readers, so please leave a review! If you're feeling extra generous, a favourite and a follow will be much appreciated as well!

In other news, I'm going on vacation for 3 weeks from next Friday. There'll still be a chapter on that day and I'll also have my computer with me. Hopefully, the buffer will allow me to update like normal. If not, I'll let you all know!

 **Ta-ta !~**

 **!~¡**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note:** Today's chapter is a bit earlier, cause I'm literally going on a plane right now, so I'll be in the air when I would usually post it.

 **Enjoy ~**

 **!~¡**

 **Spiderling**

 **!~¡**

 **Chapter 6**

 **!~¡**

There was an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. Class 1-A and Aizawa should have reached the USJ by now. Yet, he had still not gotten a call. Yagi looked worriedly at his phone again and tried calling his colleagues once more, but there wasn't even a connection. This was definitely a cause for concern and another reason on the pile of why he should hand in his resignation. Being the Symbol of Peace was important. But his time was growing ever shorter, which meant his reason for becoming a teacher should at the very least be at an equal priority. Yagi moved a hand over his forehead and rubbed it.

Nowadays, his limit for using One for All amounted to about two hours and a half hours. He could maintain his muscle form for about three, if he really pushed himself. But while in the past pushing himself increased his limits, right now things tended to be in reverse. Spending almost all of that meager time on heroics before school had been incredibly foolish.

Yagi looked at his phone and dialed Aizawa's number again and when he heard the no connection sound, he made up his mind. The decision of his resignation would have to wait until the end of the day. For now.. "Yes, I will be there!" he said resolutely, shifting to his Muscle form on habit.

"You're being reckless again," the door to the lounge room opened and in came Principal Nezu.

"Principal! I see your fur is as neat as always," All Might quickly replied and crouched on the ground to be at eye level with his boss. Nezu was on the short side, most likely because of the way he was - he looked like a chimera of a dog, mouse and bear, with white fur, dog paws for hands, and a bear-like head with a mousie nose. There was also a large scar going over his right eye.

"It's the keratin, you poor humans just can't achieve such luster," the Principal smiled, before showing him the tablet he was holding. "But I'm not the only one who's the same as always." The screen was showing a news article with a title "In the space of an hour All Might has resolved 3 separate incidents from all over town!". Yagi read it uneasily and looked back at the Principal. "It is heartening to see you so active against this town's plentora of evil-doers. You have reached the point where enforcing your Symbol of Peace has become a reflex." Nezu was moving towards the coffee table where he grabbed a cup and started pouring tea, instantly sending a warning sign to Yagi. It always triggered the same set of memories, whenever the Principal would pour him tea, a lecture would follow.

"Still, you need to keep in mind why you're here. Extending your time as the Symbol of Peace, pushing yourself past your limits despite your injuries will all be meaningless if your fire ends up fizzling, without having found a successor," Nezu handed him the tea cup and poured himself some as well. "And even after you have passed the torch to someone else, I believe it is important for you to remain here as one of our distinguished teachers, to impart your many years of experience and groom the next generation of heroes."

"Yes, indeed Principal. Hence exactly why I was planning on heading to the USJ right now to participate in Class 1-A's Trial of Rescue." Yagi deflated to his regular skeletal appearance.

"A meaningless gesture, considering you don't have much time left given your heroics in the morning. Or correct me if I'm wrong?" Nezu sipped from his cup, looking expectantly towards the pro hero.

"Y-yes.. I only have about 15 minutes with my quirk and I can maybe push the muscle form to 30." Yagi said resignedly.

"It's a 4 hour class, perhaps it would be much better if you showed at the end of it and observe the progress they have made, instead of going there for the long-winded lectures and explanations. In the meantime allow me to impart some of my knowledge and humble educational theories."

Yagi listened to the lecture that was actually not boring at all. He noted a couple of the points immediately and realized this advice was quite a lot better than the self-help book he had acquired. Yet, those realizations could not distract him from the sinking feeling in his.. Where his stomach should have been. If he had gotten at least a text or a call back or even had gotten through the connection to at least get to the voicemail, he wouldn't have been as worried. But the years of experience Nezu mentioned earlier were currently making him uneasy. He was politely thanking the Principal about his wisdom, when the chimeric creature raised a paw.

"I can see you have something on your mind and wish to leave. But first, there is one more thing I would like to talk to you about." Nezu picked up the tablet again, tapped on it a couple of times and slid it across the table towards All Might. On it he could see a student file. One Mirio Togata.

Ah. Of course.

With blond hair arranged in a cowlick, the face on the picture had a strong jaw, a prominent nose and a pair of black eyes that had no sclera. There was a certain shine to them though, that managed to transmit a sense of optimism and cheerfulness, an outgoing persona even through the still image. All Might knew who this was - the top student of the school, a 3rd year, and his former sidekick's current sidekick. The boy who according to Sir Nighteye was the perfect successor for One for All.

"Class 3-A are currently having the Foundational Hero Class as well. To pass the time until it's time to go to USJ, perhaps you would like to observe the boy in action for yourself. Sir Nighteye is right about him, he is one of the most promising students and would rise swiftly in the ranks of Heroes once he graduates."

Yagi couldn't help but frown at the words, memories of falling out with his own sidekick coming up unbidden, yet still picked up the tablet to review the file. Mirio was a very muscular teen and his fitness and exercise scores showed it wasn't just for show. He also possessed keen intelligence and an ability to analyze a situation quickly and even under pressure find a solution to a problem. He had leadership qualities on top, being able to instill respect in his peers and inspire them to follow his lead. The number 1 hero finally read the part about his hero name and aspiration and couldn't help the amused snort. Lemillion, because Mirio was so inspired by All Might, he wanted to one day save 1 million people. Yagi felt humbled that he had managed to inspire so many new and upcoming heroes and students. Still the feeling of unease was ever present.

"Have you perhaps found another possible successor?" Principal Nezu asked him after he noticed his hesitation.

"The freshman students all hold great potential," Yagi replied and put the tablet back on the table.

"Anyone in particular?" Nezu leaned forward with interest.

"There may be one or two.." Yagi shook his head. "But I need to observe them more. No, the reason I'm worried is because 13 was supposed to let me know when the students and Aizawa arrived and started the trial. I haven't been able to get through to them, not even a signal or voice mail."

"Hmmm.. That is peculiar," the Principal frowned as well. "I will see if we can get in touch to at least ease your worries. But in the meantime, how about you observe this potential candidate as well."

All Might let out a sigh, but agreed. Nezu was right, he needed to find a successor quickly, someone who could immediately take up and shoulder the monumental pillar of the Symbol of Peace. Perhaps Mirio would do, he was a 3rd year so the transition would be immediate. The boy also had very good physique and would probably adapt to One for All quickly too.

The two educators exited the lounge room and headed for the observation room of the grounds where Class 3-A were currently conducting their Trial. On the way Nezu contacted Ectoplasm who apparently had a free period and asked him to get in touch with 13 or Aizawa, which put Yagi more at ease. They were met by Snipe, who was currently observing the monitors. "All Might, Principal," the teacher bowed in greeting. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes, indeed," Nezu quickly waved away Snipe's concerns. "We are just here to observe how your students are doing."

"We just began another round of the Trial of Battle," the teacher replied and turned to the monitors. "The scenario is simple: villains are attempting a bank robbery, but things went awry and 2 civilians were injured critically so it has turned into a hostage situations. The class has been split in three - 10 students act as the villains, 5 are the hostages, and 5 are the heroes. The tasks for the heroes is to capture the villains, rescue the civilians before it's too late for the critically injured ones, and recover any booby traps or explosive devices that have been rigged by the villains."

"I see, that is a difficult Trial indeed," Yagi said having flashbacks of similar situations himself. "Why are 5 of the students in the roles of hostages?"

It was Nezu who replied, "Rather simple really. We feel like having the students experience the helplessness and powerlessness of civilians in such situations would help them relate better with them when real rescues are in progress. Which team is Mirio in?"

"The heroes, along with Nejire Hado. However I put Tamaki Amajiki on the villain team to make things fairer," Snipe explained and Yagi realized the other two students along with Mirio made up what was known as the Big 3 - the top three students of the school. He suppressed a cough and his sunken eyes shifted to the monitors where he noticed Mirio along with a blue haired girl were in the process of making a plan with their fellow students. The boy was engaged in the task at hand and seemed very animated with his gestures and instructions. Because it was very clear he was the one giving the instructions. All Might was curious what kind of plan he'd come up with, the heroes were outnumbered two to one and the clock was ticking on the injured civilians.

It seemed like the preparations were over, since the hero team started moving out. Just then Nezu got a call on his phone and picked it up.

"Principle Nezu here. Hang on, what?!" Snipe and All Might quickly looked over to the chimeric creature. "Snipe, stop the exercise and have the students go back to the school. Contact Cementos and tell him to do the same with 3-B. The school will be on lock down and I want the third years to patrol it and keep their juniors safe until the authorities are here and we come back."

"Come back from where?" All Might asked shifting to his Muscle Form.

"It seems like you were right, Ectoplasm just informed me that Tenya Iida came back running from USJ. There is a villain attack currently underway there and it seems like the sensors, cameras, and alarms were disabled. We are gathering the faculty at the plaza before heading out."

All Might had a different idea. He shot through the doors and immediately jumped in the air. Thankfully despite his limits, he still had his usual speed whenever he used One for All. He knew he should have listened to whatever was left of his gut, but who could predict such a thing as a villain attack on U.A. Academy of all places?! Besides, the Principal hadn't been wrong about his time limit and observing Mirio.

It didn't take him long to reach the domed area and he came across a group of students running away from it.

"I AM HERE," he announced as he landed right in front of them. "What's going on!" This wasn't all of the students, in fact it was just a quarter of them! And that was 13 being carried by Shoji!

"Sensei!" Urakara yelled and he could notice tears of relief falling down her cheeks. "You have to help the others! We were attacked by a huge villain and Izuku, Kirishima, and Todoroki stayed back to cover our escape! Tsuyu-chan went back to check on them too!"

"Keep going students, the teachers are already on their way! I will help the others!" All Might patted her on the head, reassuring the others with a smile. "You've all done good, everything will be fine!" It took him 2 more jumps to reach the entrance, just in time too. Much to his shock the gate burst open and he barely managed to catch Kirishima who had been sent flying through it. He noticed Midoriya, Todoroki and Asui, who was holding Aizawa in her long tongue, were being attacked by a huge villain. All Might wasted no time in punching the thing away.

"You have made me incredibly proud, students, to have managed to withstand this long against the villains while helping your classmates escape, and saving your teacher. But you can relax now. Why?" All Might ripped his tie away. "Because I AM HERE!"

"As expected of All Might," he heard quiet muttering from young Midoriya. "His strength is on a completely different level to ignore the Nomu's quirk."

"What are you mumbling about, Midoriya?" Todoroki asked his fellow student and Yagi had to admit he was curious too. He got his answer after the boy looked at him.

"Sensei, those villains said they came to specifically kill you. That thing you just hit is called a Nomu and it has incredible strength, speed, and regeneration. However, the most dangerous thing is it isn't affected by kynetic attacks. I used my full strength against it and it absorbed it like it was nothing. Of course, I'm probably not as strong as you, but.."

"Or it has to activate its quirk," Todoroki suggested.

"I am grateful for the information, young Midoriya. For now, I want you three to stay clear of the battle and hold onto Aizawa-sensei and Kirishima," All Might said handing the unconscious redhead to his classmates. He received a chorus of "Yes, Sensei!" and his smile grew wider. He had been wrong, there were more than two with potential.

His gaze finally shifted towards the villains and didn't even realize how his smile disappeared. He had been keenly aware of their presence, but instead of outright attacking them, All Might had decided to take the time to give praise where it was due and reassurance where it was needed.

Now it was time for violence where it was deserved.

In an instant All Might was in front of the Nomu hitting it with a Carolina Smash. However, instead of reacting to his attack it merely launched its own. All Might dodged deftly and the fight turned into a brief slugfest.

"So young Midoriya was right, you do have some sort of ability to neutralize kinetic attacks," the pro hero said aloud.

"That's right, his ability of _shock absorption_ was prepared just for you. You'd be better off trying to scoop his guts slowly and meticulously rather than punching it into submission."

All Might immediately moved behind the Nomu and grabbed him for a suplex. In that case he had to restrict its movements. Except there wasn't a smash in the ground. Instead, there was incredible pain in his sides. He couldn't help the blood that came out of his mouth, that was the worst place to get hit!

Yet there was another thought in his mind while the villains were gloating and threatening. That Nomu had incredible strength. Not enough to match his, but still comparable. And that thing, those villains had dared direct this monstrous power against his young students! Before he could counterattack, the ground was frozen underneath him and along with it the Nomu as well. He felt the thing's grip slacken and used the opportunity to escape quickly.

"You children.. really don't know when to listen to your teachers," he directed at the students.

"Sorry sensei, I tried catching the warp guy, but he's a lot more careful now," young Midoriya said as he landed next to Todoroki and Asui.

"No, I'm grateful for your help," Yagi wiped out the blood from his chin. "But I want you all to stand back from now on. I need you all to see.. how the Symbol of Peace deals with villains."

 **!~¡**

The ground shook and he could see the building practically vibrating under the shockwaves. Except it wasn't an earthquake that caused this, but the latest attack by the Villain Alliance. It didn't take long for the structure to start collapsing and Izuku rushed to catch as many people as he could before they hit the ground, which unfortunately amounted to only one. To his relief he noticed a long tongue catching another one, followed by two ice pillars in the form of slides that took care of the last two. He landed at their end along with Tsuyu-chan and put the woman he had caught on the ground.

"Nice save you two," he told his fellow heroes after directing the civilians to the nearest shelter. He then turned towards the collapsed wreckage. "Either of you have one of Mei's scanners? Mine was eaten earlier."

"I lost mine in the subway," Tsuyu-chan replied, wiping some sweat from her face.

Todoroki simply produced a tablet from his pack and turned it on. The tree heroes looked at it and Izuku's stomach sank. There were so many people under the ruined building! A loud thud beside them caught their attention and they turned to see Kirishima lying in a small crater. The redhead groaned before standing up with Izuku and Tsuyu-chan's help.

"Trouble," Kirishima said rubbing his head. They looked to where he'd come from and saw one of the black Nomu's about to charge.

"Great another one." Izuku glared at the thing. "Okay, one of us should be enough to stall it until All Might gets here. The other three can start rescuing the people. Who wants a go this time?" When he didn't receive an answer he turned to his friends and saw they were staring at him. "What?"

"Izuku-chan.. All Might has been dead for 6 years," Tsuyu-chan said and he looked at her in utter incomprehension. He didn't get a chance to reply because the ground shook and he felt himself falling into a chasm. There was banging, a scream and the hard impact of solid ground which finally woke him up.

He looked around dizzily and noticed he had fallen from his desk chair. "Whu? What?"

"Izuku, honey, are you okay?"

"Y-yeah.. yeah Mom, just a dream. What's the time?"

"11 in the morning. You have some friends here that have come to see you."

 _I have what now?_ He jumped from the ground, wiped the drool from his face and quickly opened the door to be met with his mother's worried face. Crap, there'd be a talk about this later, which would make her even more worried. He hated doing that to his mother.

"Hey Mom, I think I didn't hear you right.. I think you said I had friends here? As in more than one, who actually know where I live?" _What's going on here? My spider sense is fine, so nothing fishy. What then?_

His Mom's face immediately lit up and she envelopped him in a huge hug. "Oh Izuku, I'm so happy! You have finally brought friends home! And one of them is a pretty girl, my little Izuku has grown!"

"Mom! I haven't brought anyone! I can't even see who's here!"

"Oh right, sorry. I got excited there," his mothermfinally released him and Izuku could see the living room. His eyes bulged at seeing Mei cheerfully waving at him and Kirishima grinning like a maniac. _Oh no no no. Mom, what have you done?!_ He quickly looked down. Oh thank God, he was wearing clothes.

"Gotta say Prez, now I understand why you're always late to school," Kirishima said.

"What, you're always late? But you leave so early every morning," his Mom frowned at him.

"N-no, I'm never late!" Izuku implored quickly sensing the danger. "What are you two doing here anyway? And how do you even know where I live?!"

"Oh, I hacked your student file like days ago," Mei waved his legitimate concern away. "And we're here to talk about All Might's not so little pro-mmpf."

"Okay Mom, we'll just go to my room," Izuku quickly pushed Mei inside while having his hand clamped firmly over her mouth and doing his best to ignore the wide variety of Looks his mother was sending him.

Kirishima was laughing hard at this point, but still followed them in. "Thank you, Mrs. Midoriya."

"Don't just go blurting that out!" Izuku said after they were safely inside and the door was shut. "I still haven't told her about it."

"You're planning on telling her?" Kirishima asked surprised.

"W-well.." Izuku felt himself start to sweat nervously. "I-it's uh.. I p-promised." Kirishima still had the questioning expression on his face. "It's one of the conditions my Mom set before she agreed for me to become a hero, I have to be honest about Heroics and tell her about stuff that might impact my life."

"Mpfh-thmh-mhpm," Mei gave her input. Both boys turned to her and Izuku immediately blushed and jumped to one of the walls.

"S-ssorry," he said timidly.

"Is this where you tinker with stuff?" the girl ignored his apology, quickly went to his desk, and as usual picked up one of his inventions.

"Wow, you're a huge All Might fan. But what's with the spider posters?" Kirishima asked him and Izuku finally pinpointed the reason for the nervous feeling he'd felt since he saw his friends in his apartment. They were in his room. Will they think he was weird? "Nevermind, don't answer that. Wait, do you have actual spider pets in this terrarium?"

"W-well.. I thought if I observed different species of spiders I'd learn more about my quirk," Izuku blushed even more, not moving from his safe spot on the wall.

"That's good thinking," Mei said not looking away from the already disassembled pieces of his hard work. "Is that how you came up with the web fluid and guns?"

"Shooters," Izuku corrected automatically. "And kind of. Despite having a lot of spider traits from my quirk, I could never produce a web, which I'm actually glad about considering where it normally comes from in a spider's body." Kirishima snickered, but the greenhead ignored him. "What I did get from my quirk was knowledge about the composition, strength and weakness of webs, as well as the different types, so I set out to try and replicate it."

"What's this?" Kirishima asked standing in front of a white board with a huge table on it that had various numbers and months on it.

"My All Might analysis," the spider teen replied before thinking and blushed when both his friends looked at him. "I uh.. Kind of spend last night looking back through All Might incident resolutions to see if I could find anything"

"Did you?" Mei was now standing in front of the white board as well and frowning at it.

Izuku let out a sigh and stepped on the floor. "Yes, I think so. I think it started about 6 years ago."

"Dude, that's some serious level stalkering you did," Kirishima said amazed. Izuku sputtered and looked away while rubbing his neck and the redhead hastened to say, "I mean that's a good thing, considering.."

"What happened 6 years ago?" came from Mei.

"Oh uh well.." Izuku sat on his desk and quickly power his computer from sleep mode. He pulled out an article. "The best possibility I could find was his fight with Toxic Chainsaw."

"Oh I remember that one!" Kirishima frowned. "That villain was pretty weak though. And how are you two certain there's something wrong with All Might in the first place? Maybe his quirk just changes his appearance and he's never revealed his other form to keep his private life secret."

"No, there's definitely something wrong. I can see the pattern," Mei said still looking at the table, which surprised Izuku. _I didn't think anyone would understand my messy scribbling._ "It's actually really detailed," the pink devil replied giving him a smile and Izuku's blush intensified. One of these days he really needed to find a cure for his mouth. Noticing Kirishima's still confused look, he quickly grabbed a marker and moved to the board.

"Okay, let me explain. After what we saw last night, initially I thought like you Kirishima."

"Dude, we're buddies, you can call me Eijiro now," the redhead grinned at him.

"R-right, s-sure," Izuku took a breath and released it, calming himself again. "But then I couldn't really stop thinking about the way he looked.. That skeletal appearance is just not natural, even if his quirk gives him another form."

Eijiro let out a sigh but agreed, "You're right, I couldn't stop thinking about it either. And he was coughing blood too, he had to sit down almost immediately after the wall was up. Even if the Nomu had hurt him badly, this is All Might we're talking about, he's been through much worse wounds."

"Exactly. So I decided to look back into his heroics, just 6 months at first. That's when I noticed something.. well, really obvious - All Might isn't seen in public that often anymore." His friends remained silent so he continued. "I went even further back, to here." Izuku pointed at a date on the board. "This was the incident with Toxic Chainsaw about 6 years ago. After that he appeared for the next two days normally and then he was gone for about 3 weeks. Everyone thought he was on a well deserved vacation."

"So it was either that villain or an incident that wasn't revealed to the public," Mei said. "What changed afterwards?"

"There was a gradual decline in his appearances. For one, he wasn't everpresent anymore. I'm not sure if you remember, but back then it seemed like he was constantly patrolling or saving people. Some on the forums joked he was present 24/7, 365 days per year. And it was kind of true, documenting some of his appearances before that, I almost thought his quirk allowed him to teleport and only sleep for an hour per day. He'd be stopping a bank robbery in Tokyo then an hour later he'd be saving people from a burning building in Osaka," he circled the two incidents in question from about a month before the Toxic Chainsaw one.

"Naturally, how else would you become known as the Symbol of Peace for years," Kirishima said thoughtfully.

"What are these other dates circled?" Mei asked.

"Those are incidents where he suffered minor injuries. Except, they weren't minor because his time in the public would take a huge dive afterwards."

"How come no one else has noticed this? It seems so obvious," Kirishima asked after counting the circles. There were a lot of them.

"Some did, but no one really considered the possibility that he was sevwrely injured. Or those that did were ridiculed or labeled as trolls, since All Might seemed to face huge crises without any issues. The most popular theory is that he has a family and is dedicating more time to them."

"What, a family?" the redhead asked confused. Izuku noticed Mei had sat down on his chair and was spinning on it while looking at his ceiling.

"Honestly, it kind of fits - those initial three weeks were when his child would have been born and then he also disappears for a week around the same time every year, so that'd be to celebrate the birthday. He takes increasingly more and more time off to be with his wife and see his child grow. If we didn't have the benefit of seeing the video, I'd have probably believed that theory myself."

"How much time does All Might dedicate to heroics now?" Mei asked suddenly.

"Uhm," Izuku looked to the board, to a spot in particular where he had a number underlined. "Around 2 and a half hours I would say, at least that's how much time he spent yesterday on resolving accidents before coming to USJ. It would explain why he didn't show up initially, if he was short on time."

"It's probably even less now, if we take into account the wound he received from that thing," the pinkhead pointed out.

"Wait, if the amount is that low how did he manage to stay in his All Might form for 3 hours when we did the Trial of Battle?" Eijiro asked.

"My working theory is that when he's muscular it doesn't necessarily mean he has his regular amount of power. It's more for show kind of thing. And if you remember he was really quick in disappearing after we were finished."

A look of realization settled on Eijiro's face. "That's right, some of us even commented on it! He really is severely ill then."

"It looks like the days of the Symbol of Peace are numbered," Mei said somberly and a heavy silence fell over them.

 _What would the world be like without the Symbol of Peace?_ Without All Might, his smile and laugh that put everyone at ease, his will and strength that stopped villains cold and held society like a pillar? Would everything crumble away? _It's already happening_ , Izuku realized. The villain attack on USJ. The increase in crime in town, despite All Might actively patrolling. In the past only his mere presence caused for crime to drop to almost 0 in towns he visited. And the Hero Killer who became more infamous with each day after his casualty list kept growing. As if he knew he'd go unpunished. What would happen if he faced a weakened, ill All Might?

His dream came unbidden. _All Might has been dead for 6 years._

"Izuku? You're looking pale, are you okay?" He realized Mei was standing in front of him giving him a concerned look.

He felt suffocated. "I need to go out. Let's go out." He fled his room, he would have jumped through the window like usual, except he doubted his friends would be able to follow. "Mom, we're going out!" He heard a vague response as well as Eijiro's goodbye to his mother, but by then he was already out and racing down the stairs.

The fresh air made him feel better. It was a nice sunny day and some people gave him weird looks, probably because he was out of school, but he didn't care. He took a few lungfuls of air and felt his breathing slow down. _Did I just have a panic attack?!_

"Dude, are you okay?" Eijiro and Mei finally caught up with him.

"Yeah, s-sorry.. I just.. lots of thoughts at once," Izuku replied. "You guys want to come to the beach with me?"

"What, the beach? It's spring!" Kirishima yelled surprised. Mei was still giving him a concerned look so Izuku smiled, trying to show he was better.

"Not for swimming, it's.. Well, it's a place I like to go to. It's not your typical beach." His two friends agreed and he led them to Dagobah Municipal beach.

"This is really a beach? Wow, you weren't kidding!"

"It's not a beach.." Mei said with stars in her eyes. "It's a treasure trove!" The girl didn't wait for them and quickly ran to one of the small hills and started going through things, which made Izuku laugh. He finally noticed that she was wearing actual workwear clothing, which seemed perfect for what she was doing. The spider teen couldn't blame her, he enjoyed looking for hidden treasures himself.

"I don't know why it's turned like this. I guess maybe various wreckage and garbage started washing up here and then people just kept throwing things away." He explained to Eijiro as he followed the pink devil. "I've been trying to clear it up, but I've been getting sidetracked by all the things I've found. I used materials from her to make my web-shooters."

"Birds of a feather," Eijiro muttered which made Izuku laugh. "By the way, I like Mei's web-guns more. It's shorter to say, very straightforward, and sounds manlier, you know."

"Not you too! It makes me sound like a criminal," Izuku said exasperated.

"But Snipe uses guns and he's an amazing hero," Eijiro pointed out.

"Ah.. You're right." Izuku was silent for a bit. "Sorry about freaking out earlier. I.. didn't sleep much last night because of the research I did and I had a nightmare before Mom woke me up."

"I get you man, yesterday was pretty traumatic, it's normal. I had a hard night as well, even though I was exhausted from the healing," Eijiro patted him on the shoulder. "It's not unmanly to admit you're shaken up." The redhead sighed. "But this is huge. What are we going to do?"

"We definitely have to keep it a secret for the time being," Izuku said.

"Says the guy who's planning on telling his mother," Eijiro pointed out and the spider teen sputtered.

"I've taken care of the footage from USJ," Mei said and the two boys turned to her. She was sitting cross legged on the ground with various junk strewn around her. She seemed busy disassembling a blender at the moment.

"What do you mean, you deleted it?" Eijiro asked. "Wouldn't that be suspicious?"

The pinkhead shook her head, "I left most of the footage intact, except for the ending and a couple of other uninteresting bits, which I corrupted. They'll think it was because of the interference." She licked her top lip in concentration, it seemed like she was having issue with a jammed bolt. "The only copy left is on a USB stick that I have encrypted and programmed to purge itself if the passcode is entered wrong twice. It will do the same if anyone attempts to force through the protection too." She stopped trying and plunged her hand in the inside of her overall before taking a small stick and tossing it to Izuku.

"Wait, why are you giving it to me?" the spider teen asked as he scrambled to catch it.

Mei shrugged. "You seem like the most reliable and responsible out of us. I may accidentally incorporate it in one of my babies after all."

"That's right, you're the Class Prez who took charge yesterday and guided everyone," Kirishima patted him hard on the back. "Anyway, is this the place you had in mind when we talked about sparring? How about we do it now, get our minds off things. I've been feeling restless since yesterday and I need to move again to see how much I've recovered."

"I uhm.." Izuku stammered surprised at the change of topic. Actually, he was feeling restless as well, especially because of the dream. He looked back to Mei who seemed engrossed in.. Was she extracting the electrical motor from the blender? "Okay, but I don't have my web-shooters," he agreed finally putting the USB stick in his pocket. _Wait.. I'm wearing the same clothes as yesterday after I got home! I forgot to change in the commotion!_

"That's not a bad thing, I think you rely on them too much," Eijiro said while doing some stretches.

"W-what?"

"I've noticed it too," Mei added. "They're awesome and allow you to be extra versatile, but your base physical abilities are pretty impressive too."

"Wait, how do you.." Eijiro frowned. "No, let me guess, you did more spying. I didn't peg you for such a voyeur." Mei smiled to herself and said nothing. "But she's right, let's have a manly fight with our fists!"

"What about legs, can I kick too?" Izuku started doing his own stretches. He felt too stiff after sitting all night in that chair and even falling asleep in it.

"Of course man, what kind of question is that?" Kirishima laughed. Afterwards they sparred well into the mid-afternoon. The redheaded bestial boy was an incredible fighter. He was constantly attacking and didn't seem at all worried about defending, which given his quirk made sense. If Izuku didn't rely on his spider sense, he'd have been knocked out quite a bit. He managed to hold his flexibility to avoid getting impaled or cut, even doing some of his signature acrobatics. He even loosened some of his self-imposed limits after seeing Eijiro was able to take a punch.

To the boys' surprise it seemed like Mei got bored with tinkering and opted to join in. An even bigger surprise was she managed to hold her own for quite awhile against both of them. In a contest of strength and power she was completely outclassed, there was no question about that. However, it seemed like the pink headed devil had incredibly good battle sense on top of being very light footed. In the end the three teens were lying on the ground exhausted.

"Damn, I feel so much better now," Eijiro let out a sigh of relief and Izuku had to agree. He was a lot less stressed than before. Yet his mind was still heavy with thoughts.

"All Might is pretty amazing.. Despite his injuries, he keeps going and doing his best," Izuku said suddenly catching the other two's attention.

"Is it really a good thing? He's clearly leading himself to an early grave," the only present girl pointed out.

"What? He's the Symbol of Peace, he has to uphold that reputation. What do you suggest he do?" Eijiro asked incredulously.

"I don't know, but pushing himself is clearly not making things better. Sure he's extended his time as the Symbol of Peace and giving society a couple of extra years under his protection. But he's clearly at his limit now and it will all come crashing down."

Something clicked in Izuku's mind. "He said he needed us to see him."

"What?" the redhead asked him confused.

"You were knocked out, it was after we freed him from the Nomu. He said he needed us to watch how the Symbol of Peace dealt with villains. I think All Might is the most aware of his own limits and that's why he became a teacher at U.A. He's looking for a successor, someone who can follow in his footsteps and become the next Symbol."

Mei hummed thoughtfully. "That makes sense, although I still think it's too late now. Do you think he has found someone?"

Izuku frowned. "I think.. It won't matter," he said surprising both his friends. "Think about it, despite all his work as the Symbol of Peace, despite being a deterrent for years against villains and evildoers.. It still isn't enough. Villains are becoming more active, no one would have dared attack U.A. if he was at his best." His dream came to mind, the words of dream-Izuku in particular - _One of us should be enough to stall it until All Might gets here._ But that was wrong. Izuku stood up and looked towards what little he could see of the ocean.

"Everyone has grown complacent, because of All Might. Everyone has been relying on him, everyone has been waiting on him.. He's the Symbol of Peace, it's only to be expected. Endeavor is the only one who is even trying to outperform him and then after All Might stops being a hero it'd fall on him to fill his spot. Can you even imagine that?"

The silence that followed was tense and answer enough.

"I didn't expect this from you, Midoriya," Eijiro stood up as well and looked at the other boy angrily. "All Might has achieved so much and there are many other great heroes like Hawks and Engenium! Even past heroes, like Crimson Riot! What are you saying, that there shouldn't be a Symbol of Peace?"

"No, the opposite." Izuku shook his head and turned back to them. "Why should there be only one Symbol of Peace?"

"Ooooh," Mei's eyes widened in understanding, but Eijiro still seemed confused.

"What? What do you mean, of course there's only one!"

"Yes and that's All Might," Izuku agreed. "And I think no one can really fill his shoes, no one can compare to the incredible job he's done over the years. But I also think it's a mistake for one person to even try to do it, it would just be imitating and people would constantly compare the two. Instead, it should be a group of people. Instead.. We need to build on the solid foundation that he has set up."

"We?"

"Of course!" Mei jumped to her feet as well and had a manic grin on her face. "Who else? We know his secret and it's our generation that will have to deal with the fallout when he finally falls. Sure there are other current heroes and hero teams, but Izuku is right, no one comes even close to All Might."

"You two are crazy!" the redhead shook his head. "We're still just students! The adults and actual pro heroes have to handle this situation!"

"Like they've been doing it so far?" Izuku asked and Kirishima sucked in a breath. "I'm not saying we should go out there immediately and start breaking the law by becoming vigilantes. But I think we should still start making preparations for the future, at the very least look at other students with great potential."

"We'll need funds, if we want to be able to do things our way and not be reliant on the government. And lots of them! I should start looking into registering a company sooner, but I'll need exposure. Oh the sports festival is coming up, we could use that to showcase my babies!"

"My mom is a manager in a tech company," Izuku said excitedly. "She could probably help us with setting up the company. She's been helping me with my dream for 2 years now and I was gonna tell her about All Might anyway."

"I think you two need to calm down," Kirishima halted them in their tracks. "Look, Izuku I think you're probably the best potential hero in our class. And you Mei really are incredibly smart. But we're still just high school students! It hasn't even been a week since we started to learn how to become a proper hero."

"Can you really learn to be a hero or is it something that comes from within?" Izuku asked him challengingly, but the redhead shook his head.

"That's not what I meant and you know it. Of course it's something that comes from within! But we lack experience, we still don't know how to deal with a lot of situations! Just think about yesterday! Trying to start a hero team or a company right now is too early! Look, I understand. Seeing All Might like that, finding out he was on a timer, it's really shocking! But that doesn't mean we have to over-react now. I'm not saying I hate the idea, I agree with you. I think we just need to take our time with this."

Izuku exhaled slowly and looked at Mei. The girl was looking to the side and had her arms crossed over her breasts. He looked back at Eijiro and nodded. "You're right, maybe we need to take a step back and sit on this. Think more about things."

The other boy nodded and smiled. "Let's just keep All Might's secret for now. And hey, Mei is right, the sports festival is coming up! If you want to get exposure, that's the best place to do it!"

The topic shifted to the upcoming event and the three couldn't help but share their excitement about it. They had all seen it on tv in the past and now they'd all have the chance to participate. Eventually Eijiro had to get back home since his folks were still worried for his health. To Izuku's surprise Mei still wanted to hang out together, so he invited her back to his house, an offer she accepted happily. It was on their way home when she suddenly put her hand on his shoulder and turned him to fac, after scooping all thetparts she had gathered in her pack. It was on their way home when she suddenly put her hand on his shoulder and turned him to face her. The spider teen had rarely seen such a serious expression on her face.

"I just want to say, I agree with you. Your idea is great, we should do it."

"What? But I thought over what Eijiro said, we're out of our depth here."

"That may be. But I still think we should start preparing now. Rome wasn't built in a day, we won't make a super amazing hero team immediately and become the Pillars of Peace overnight. We need to start setting things up, look for potential members, get exposure. All I'm saying is, not being hasty is good, but we shouldn't lose our focus."

Izuku smiled and couldn't help himself when he pulled Mei into a hug (of course he freaked out several times later that night, while he was reviewing the events of the day). He was glad they were friends, she understood what he meant. Just the thought of standing back and doing nothing made him seize immediately. He had sworn he'd never be that kind of hero, hell that kind of person! They could do this. Maybe they could even help All Might from the shadows.

The two teens continued talking about their plans for the future all the way home. They then switched to other topics and even rewatched the fight from USJ, after Mei had told him the password for the USB stick. The pinkhead made sure to point out on more than one occasion how a web grenade would have been incredibly useful against the Nomu and the other villains.

Izuku was having such a good time, he never noticed no one called or messaged Mei, not even when it started getting late. He didn't even realize she happily agreed to stay for dinner without asking anyone, at least not until after he had walked her to the train station.

 **!~¡**

 **A/N:** Damn it, this chapter went longer than I wanted, again. So I had to cut a scene or two and save them for later. Again. -_-

I know dream sequences are cliche, but there's a reason for that - big traumatic experiences or just stressful experiences from life have a huge impact on dreams.

Bit of plot and character development in this chapter. I liked writing from All Might's PoV.

Thank you all once again for the amazing support as usual. This story is gaining a surprising amount of traction, which is good since we're about to get to some controversial stuff. I can't believe there's so many people who are enjoying it. I also love reading all the reviews, some of them really crack me up. Keep them coming! =D

 **Ta-ta ~**

 **!~¡**


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